Those Who Eat Death
by goddessofspite
Summary: They were once the most powerful people in Europe, full of the conviction of their own natural superiority to the point where it seemed they'd become immortal. They'd eaten death, and they longed to taste it again.
1. Prologue

_All characters in the Harry Potter Verse are the property of J.K.Rowling's creative genius. All hail. _**

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**Prologue**

The loud bang of the bolt on the cell door exploded through her sleep and the shriek of rusted hinges reverberated in her skull till she thought her eardrums would tear. It didn't end there, though. The door wouldn't open, of course, which is only natural when one takes into consideration the fact that it hadn't opened in…three years? Had it really been three years since the Dementors had left?

It scraped to a halt only a few inches from the frame and the men on the other side wound up having to violently shoulder it open. Sparks flew as the metal scraped, screaming, against the ancient, blood-covered stones of the cell floor. Finally, it bounced off the wall behind it, and swung, wounded and limp like a broken wing, the creaking sounds it made like an old woman's tired weeping.

From where she lay, the woman on the floor saw two pairs of boots approach her. Vaguely, she wondered at how used to darkness her eyes had become in this place. The thought led her to try and remember the sun. She could recall it as a brilliance; a fearful, white-hot thing in a world of greys and blacks.

She couldn't remember colour. The Dementors had taken colour from her within the first two years of her imprisonment.

_Here they come again,_ wailed Jabber.

_They can't harm us. So long as they don't bring back the Dementors, they can't hurt us more than they already have,_ said Hiss, as calm as you please.

Nevertheless, the woman on the floor felt fear rise in her, like an unstoppable iceberg, lifting up her arms so that she found them shielding her face before she'd even realised it.

_No beatings! _sobbed Jabber. _Please don't beat us!_

Hiss merely hissed wordlessly, spitting like a cat.

The owners of the boots heard nothing, though, as they stood at her head. She didn't even whimper.

"This is her?" asked the man with the cleaner boots.

"Yeah," confirmed the other. "Tha's 'er, alright."

Shiny Boots knelt down and bent to peer into her face. Long, white, blond hair cascaded down and hit the dusty floor at her eye level.

And with it, the colour 'Gold' remerged into her life.

She recognised him in a painful, painful second, even though she hadn't seen him in over sixteen years, and felt something inside her open up that she'd thought was dead. Her history, her life, her achievements and failings and dreams came flooding back like a river breaking a dam.

This man had almost raised her. He'd been an older brother, a mentor. At one point she'd aspired to nothing other than being like him in every possible way. He was here, before her, peering into her face anxiously, searching for recognition.

Oh God, she'd _missed_ him.

She opened her mouth and tried to speak but all that came out was an empty wheeze of breath. Some part of her throat had dried up and hardened from disuse.

His face contorted as if she'd stabbed him in the heart with her pathetic attempt at communication and tears began to slide down his face.

"You look like a corpse," he murmured. Despite his evident grief, his voice was as cold and collected as ever, with its frosty, bitter edge that she knew and loved so well.

It almost made her laugh.

Almost, but not quite. After close to two decades in Azkaban, laughter and tears were quite beyond her.

For once, Jabber and Hiss were silent.

"I can hardly tell it's you, Baby," he sighed. "Maybe I expected too much of you. Maybe you aren't…yourself anymore…"

_What a peculiar turn of phrase,_ thought the woman.

_That's what THEY'D like to think_, spat Jabber furiously. _If anyone's kept their soul in here, it's you…_

_That's because she never had a soul to begin with, Jabber,_ replied Hiss amused. _Or so THEY claimed…_

The woman lay on the floor and tried to think. Jabber and Hiss had a point. At most, she was a shadow of her former self; Azkaban had robbed her of aspirations to the point where if breathing hadn't been automatic she would have stopped that too, long ago. She hadn't moved from her place in a few months now, in fact, and probably couldn't if she tried.

But she hadn't cracked.

She'd listened to them all crack one by one… Bellatrix, Barty Crouch jr., both the Brussiers. All of them had lost awareness and sanity in here at one point or another. Screaming and crying and begging were normal activities in Azkaban. It was when they started laughing hysterically as the Dementors fed off them that you knew they'd finally lost it.

One by one, they'd all laughed. One by one.

All except her.

And Sirius….

The man with the long golden hair began to sob again. She'd never seen him like this before and she knew him well. Growing up, she seen him turn hard and sneer at the best of them. Cornered, this man turned to steel instead of crumbling. The woman had a feeling that even if he'd ever been caught and put in Azkaban for his…affiliations, he would have found a way to either get out or kill himself out of spite. So what on this earth could reduce him to the heap of blubbering mush she was currently witnessing? What did he need?

Why was he here?

The question struck her so suddenly that she could hear Hiss and Jabber gasp as if they'd been struck.

This man was not the type who asked anyone for help. _She_ of all people knew this. But here he was, after sixteen years, expending the man power and money to …sit and have a chat?

Not likely; that simply was not his way.

Either he was sent to kill her, or he needed something and needed it badly. His list of allies in the outside world must have dwindled indeed for him to look for friends inside Azkaban.

Buuuuut…she couldn't speak. And if she could anyway, she wouldn't ask. One of the more subtle side effects of being in Azkaban was maddening uniformity in the lonely darkness of prison. So maddening was this boredom, in fact, that after a while one tended to not care whether they lived or died so long as something _happened_.

So if Lucius Malfoy was here to kill her, well then he better make it interesting.

_Lucius Malfoy._

She contemplated the name and all it meant to her. History, power, birthright…home…

_He's not here to kill you. You already know that,_ sneered Hiss impatiently.

True. IfLucius Malfoy had been ordered to end her miserable existence he'd hire someone to do it. Save him the risk of getting blood on his clothes.

_What's he here for, then, eh?_ Jabber snivled excitedly. _To break us out?_

_Don't be a fool, Jabber, _spat Hiss. _We're not getting out. We're never getting out. I'd have thought you'd know that after seventeen years in this hell._

_Then what's he here for?_ whined Jabber heartbroken. _What's he here for!_

The woman didn't know. But she was interested enough not to go back to sleep as Lucius began to collect himself and speak again.

"As you've probably guessed by now, I'm in trouble," muttered Lucius bitterly.

_Aaaaah. _

Well, of course he was. But she still couldn't tell how he expected _her_ to do anything about it. The only thing she _could_ do any more was die.

"I'm sorry I didn't come get you earlier…It's just that…I thought it was all over, you know. I thought _HE_ was dead, and there were so many of us in prison. I was afraid for myself, for my family…" continued Lucius.

_Should we tell him that you weren't surprised? _giggled Hiss. _Or should we let him grovel a little more?_

Hiss was right.

When they'd first thrown her into Azkaban, she'd lingered and thought of many ways to cut her misery short, escape routes, suicides, rescuers…Lucius Malfoy had not been one of them. She'd known him well enough back then too. Lucius watched out for Lucius…and perhaps Narcissa…and Draco. No one else.

But she wasn't angry. It was part of his charm, as far as she was concerned. She'd tried to be like him, when she was younger, and she'd failed.

She tended to get too emotionally attached to people, sometimes…

_Sirius…_

Her thoughts were interrupted suddenly as the owner of the dusty boots suddenly came back into the cell and began furiously whispering to Lucius. She hadn't even noticed he'd left, so occupied with her discovery of a Malfoy in her cell was she, but she certainly began paying attention now.

"…Look, are you here to 'ave a nice cup o' tea or break' er out, coz our time's quickly runnin' out, Malfoy…"

"You insolent mudblood…there was a time when your kind whimpered at my feet!"

"Yeah well, you've fallen far since then, 'aven't you?" growled Dusty Boots. "Now, are you takin' this sack o' bones or what?"

"She's in no condition to travel, she might die…" said Lucius.

" Well, she's certainly goin' to die in 'ere, that's for sure. When they stop movin' even to eat or take a piss, that's when you know that it's all over. And this one ain't moved in months, now." Dusty Boots paused in his tirade to give her a gentle kick. Where his toe made contact with her body came a flame with searing pins and needles. "I'm surprised she's still breathin'. Usually takes a couple o'days to end'em once they stop carin'. .."

"You say she hasn't been eating?"

"Oh, aye. But we 'ave to feed 'em. Scrimgeour's orders from the Ministry. Dirty job, but somebody's got to keep these bastards alive till the Dementors come back, and let me tell you, that'll be my happy-day!"

Another silence. The woman wondered vaguely who Scrimgeour might be.

"It's now or never, Malfoy, make up your mind."

There was another silence, in which even Jabber and Hiss seemed to hold their breaths. Then, suddenly, Lucius pounced forward from his crouching position so that his hands where on the dirty floor right by her head and his mouth was at her ear.

"I'm sorry," he whispered furiously.

_You better be, _she thought, knowing full-well that whatever happened next would be against her will

"You probably just want to be left in peace…."

_That was debatable…_

"…but I need your help. No, I need you to _owe_ me a favour. And this…this is all I can offer you…. Your freedom…"

_Oh, well, then. If you put it **that** way,_ thought the woman non-chalantly as both men slid their hands beneath her body.

Then, the excruciating pain began.


	2. A History Lesson

**(sigh) Fanfiction is fritzing on me. The ruler line between sections isn't working right now so the jump to a new location in the story will now be signified with a large 'X'. **

**I'd like to thank my Beta Reader Katie...and then I'd like to go to bed.**

**Enjoy, you guys. Any and all readers are highly appreciated. :)**

**Nighty night.**

**Spite**

****

**Chapter 1. A History Lesson**

Seventh year. Harry could hardly believe himself.

It seemed like only yesterday that he'd walked into the Great Hall to be sorted. Seventh year had seemed so far away, and now he wasn't even going to graduate.

He'd made up his mind. There were more important things.

Like killing Voldemort.

Ironically enough, he knew, the only person this decision was truly killing was Hermione. She and Ron were currently standing next to him, adamantly trying to talk him out of his decision, the surprisingly bright October sunset shining towards them in the west wing's corridor as people rushed by them to get to class.

It would be only a few minutes before the moon would forcefully push the sun's head beneath the horizon, drowning the world in dusk.

"Look, mate…" began Ron morosely, then he stopped, unable to think of anyway to convince Harry to change his mind. Hermione, on the other hand…

"Harry, please. _Please_ stay. You _need_ your final year, here. You _need_ this education if you're going to face Voldemort with any confidence!"

"I've faced him just fine before, Hermione," said Harry, a little insulted. People were shooting him covert glances as they passed by. He stood out like a sore thumb, the only person _not_ in school uniform.

"But it's been what we've learnt here that's saved our arses every time we've run into him, Harry," Ron rubbed his face tiredly. "Don't you think you'll be missing important stuff, dropping out now?

Harry studied his two best friends, thinking of how _they_ were feeling for the first time that day. They looked…old. They looked old and tired, and it _wasn't_ just the building shadows. For seventeen year olds, Ron and Hermione certainly looked pale and sunken-eyed enough, like good parents with an irredeemably criminal child.

_And I'm the child,_ he thought. _I've done this; I've aged them…they didn't ask to get involved, to be traumatized and scarred and put into danger, time after time, or to have their families put in danger. It all happened the moment they met _me_…on the train…in first year…._

"Harry, _please_ stay." Hermione's voice suddenly broke, her eyes filling with tears. "Dumbledore would have wanted it. Hogwarts isn't perfect…but if you leave, it'll only be a matter of time before the Death Eaters get you. Then, they'll… you'll…you'll die…you'll die if you leave, Harry…"

Ron turned and wrapped his arms around her. Harry stood frozen, mortified by Hermione's pain. "I'm sorry." he whispered.

"It's not good enough!" she snapped angrily. " 'Sorry' is not good enough! Don't Ron and I mean anything to you? We've worked long and hard to keep you alive…"

"Oh _Hermione…_" moaned Harry. "That's not fair!"

"No! Shut up! It's true!" she yelled shoving away Ron's comforting hands, denying his attempt to soothe and silence. "You're going to get yourself killed!"

"Well, if I stay here _you'll_ all be killed," he replied testily. "If I stay, they'll _come_ to Hogwarts and there are other people here, besides myself, that need to be safe. I am a _curse_ to those around me in case you haven't noticed_! A bloody curse!_"

"Harry…" began Ron.

"No!" insisted Harry. "No, Ron, stop thinking like you always do for a minute and think logically!"

"Thanks a lot…" snorted Ron.

"Your eldest brother is missing half his face! Your father's almost died on numerous occasions! You! _YOU! _You got poisoned last year! Or in first year when you went up against that chessboard! You were _eleven!_ You had no business doing that! And Hermione getting petrified by a fucking Basilisk in second year! Let's not even get _started_ on Ginny!"

"You saved all our lives, mate…" Ron smiled weakly. "I think we can forgive you!"

"Ron, it's not funny," Harry shook his head. "I can't anymore. I can't be at Hogwarts. It's…selfish. I've ruined enough lives. Killed enough of the people I love already…"

"You haven't killed anyone, you twit!" howled Hermione. "Voldemort has! _Voldemort_! It's none of it your fault! And if he kills you…if he kills_ you_ we're all _fucked!"_

"_HerMIONE!"_ Ron stared at her in shock. Hermione _never _used profanity. Never. "That was…kind of hot."

Harry rolled his eyes and turned away when his friends began furiously macking. _Alright, so maybe I haven't aged their HORMONES_, he thought irritably. _For God's sake, he was saying his goodbyes. Couldn't they keep their mouths separate for all of five minutes? _

As his eyes drifted over the now dwindling crowds in the hallway, a gleam of orange hair caught his eye.

Ginny was surrounded by a flock of girls who wanted to _be_ her, as usual. Watching her made Harry ache inside like when the Dursleys used to forget to feed him; an ache that made him giddy, and breathless and hopeless and hopeful all in one go. He missed Ginny. He missed her a lot. Sometimes, at night, when he closed his eyes and tried really hard, he could still remember how she _felt_.

As if on cue, she turned and their eyes met. She smiled at him. It was a sweet smile, even loving. But there was anger there too, and resentment and some sort of vow that Harry just could not decipher. He barely understood what girls were on about under regular circumstances. All he knew was that Ginny had not agreed that his breaking up with her for her own protection had been necessary at all, and he was secretly terrified of what she was promising him every time she looked at him like that.

"…Oi! Harry!"

Harry jumped and turned to see Ron glaring at him. "What?"

"Stop staring at my sister. Either be a man and crawl to her on your hands and knees and grovel and beg for her to take you back, or stop behaving like a stalker…"

"I don't stare." was all Harry could stammer in defence.

Hermione groaned.

"Yes, you DO! Yes you do!" insisted Ron. Then remembering something, he added (pointing a finger at Harry), "You poured cereal and milk all down your front yesterday; that's how hard you were staring!"

"Ron…" Hermione murmured warningly.

"No, Hermione! I'm sick of the both of them! _He_ mopes; _she_ mopes. She moped all summer, you know? The Burrow was unbearable! And mum kept behaving as if they'd both lost a limb. If they want to be together, then they should _be together_! Enough of this whole sexual tension bit, please…"

"That's rich coming from you, Mr. It-Took-Me-Six-Years-To-Admit-That-I-Like-Hermione-Granger," snapped Harry.

"Yeah, but…what?" Ron went bright maroon up to his hairline.

"You heard me," Harry raised an amused eyebrow. "Six years, Ron. I put up with _you_ for six years…."

Hermione started laughing hysterically.

She abruptly stopped laughing when a long, morose howl erupted from the Forbidden Forrest, ringing over the entire school, bouncing off its walls and rebounding back over the moors.

Harry had never heard the school go so quiet so quickly before. Infact, He'd never heard such utter, fear-filled silence at all. Hogwarts had fallen deathly silent and the moon shone balefully overhead like the back of an acid-washed skull. This, more than anything else, made it clear to him that it wasn't just him and those close to him who were shell-shocked by the uncertainty of Hogwarts' security.

Not even the birds, settling in the trees in great swarming clouds as they always did in the evening, weren't squawking, and, perhaps, that was the greatest indication of danger . A moment later another howl sounded, coming from a different part of the Forbidden Forrest, then another howl, then another and another. A cacophony of howling, a lupine choir announcing their arrival.

"_Werewolves!_" breathed Ron. He was so frightened, his eyes had opened wide enough for Harry to see the whites all around his irises. Hermione stood, statuesque with terror.

At that precise moment, a loud snarling and growling sounded from right outside the gates in the courtyard. It was so savage that the three friends could hear the monsters fighting to the death from where they were, up four floors, right across from the gates. It was a terrible, angry primal sound, of a power struggle filled with teeth and claws and hot gushing blood.

Then…

"_Open the gates! Open the gates! Minerva!"_

Harry's heart almost stopped beating.

"That's Hagrid…"

Professor McGonagall exploded out of the classroom right next to them, closely followed by Professor Flitwick, out of the next classroom, and Professor Sprout out of the last classroom down the corridor.

Screaming and wailing began to rise from the terrified student body as all over the school teachers began to emerge, wands at the ready.

"To the front gates!" yelled McGonagall. Then, she took a moment to turn to Harry, Hermione and Ron, and say, "You three! _STAY…..HERE._" Before she took off at a run.

"You know," mused Ron, pulling his own wand out. "After seven years…you'd think she'd know us better, by now."

"I think, on some level, she does," panted Hermione as they began sprinting down to the front gates.

X

An insistent heavy hammering rattled the gates, accompanied by Hagrid's desperate cries of , "_Open the gates! Open the gates!"_

Hermione, Ron and Harry came to a stop behind the line of teachers. Behind _them_, the courtyard was scattered with students with their wands drawn, students who were sick of being afraid, or who had younger family members at the school to defend, or who had lost something to Voldemort and his minions and were just generally itching for a fight.

Harry stared in disbelief and felt a painful surge of his pride and love for Hogwarts come flooding back from where it had retreated to when Dumbledore had died. Hogwarts, Harry suddenly realised, had been his family, his parent and his siblings. It had annoyed and frightened and bewildered him sometimes, but mostly it had also knocked a lot of sense into him. And he was proud. Proud to have belonged here and sorry to have brought such dire circumstances down on the people here who'd been his reason for living for so long.

"Right!" shouted McGonagall. "Wands at the ready!" The professors held defensive positions. Ron, Hermione and Harry too, raised their wands and braced themselves. Instinctively, Harry knew that the other people in the courtyard had done the same. This time, the Death Eaters weren't going to take them by surprise. "Argus! Open the gate!"

A heavy, creaking and groaning sounded as the gate struggled open. Once again, the school fell deathly silent; all the other students, it seemed, were now waiting for the sounds of open battle.

But none came.

All that could be heard once the gates were open, were Hagrid's loud, braying sobs. All the howling had stopped, but the cessation of the werewolves' announcement seemed a triumphant one, as if they were waiting in the trees to witness some grand grief, another great blow dealt to Hogwarts and the Order of the Phoenix.

Hagrid stumbled in with a long, lean shape, covered in matted fur and bloody lesions, laying limply stretched in his arms.

"_Hagrid!_" screamed McGonagall, dismayed. "What are you doing!"

A horrid gurgling sound came from the mauled creature and a few gobs of clotted blood slid out of its maw and splotched onto the emerald grass. Harry heard several of the surrounding witnesses shriek in fear and recoil in disgust.

It was alive.

Harry couldn't believe it. Yes, it was true that Hagrid tended to take pity on the worst of God's creations, but this was ridiculous! This was a _werewolf!_ They were the enemy! They worked for Voldemort! This one, no matter how tattered and torn it was, could very easily be a spy.

"Kill it." snapped McGonagall angrily.

The teachers raised their wands again, pointing them at the sad, quivering pile of fur.

"NOOOOOO! NOOOOOO!" screamed Hagrid, turning around and putting himself in the line of fire. "NOOOOOO!"

"Hagrid!" screamed Professor Sprout, obviously at wits end. "What's wrong with you-"

"_IT'S REMUS!"_ howled the half giant sinking to his knees. Tilting his head back, he let out a long, mournful bellow at the sky.

Hermione turned frantically to see how Harry had taken this. She was just in time to see him blanch too suddenly, wheel around and vomit so violently he stayed bent over and shuddering for a good long while after he was done.

"Hagrid…_Hagrid!"_ Professor McGonagall tried to be heard over the half-giant's thunderous sobbing. "Put him down…GENTLY!"

Hagrid collected himself enough to subdue his blubbering and actually lowered Lupin's battered form, very slowly, on to the soft grass of the courtyard.

"Good. Argus! Close those gates and lock them. I want Auror sentries posted on the walls. Mr and Miss Weasley…"

Through the haze in his head, Harry thought, _That's silly…why is McGonagall calling Hermione that? _Then, he suddenly realised that it was Ginny who was gently rubbing his back and wiping his mouth. She straightened up when her name was called and went to stand next to her brother.

"Go get Madame Pomfrey down here. Quick as you can," Minerva McGonagall remained in control, but something about her demeanour betrayed her panic.

_Another original member of the Order…Another one…And no Death Eater corpse to show for it._

It wasn't fair…

"Potter… Potter! Oh for goodness' sake, Potter will you answer me?" Someone grabbed his face. It was Minerva. Harry didn't remember her moving towards him. She stared into his eyes for a moment then called someone else over. "Longbottom, when Madame Pomfrey comes down here to take Remus…Professor Lupin, to the infirmary I want you to follow her up there with Potter and tell her to give him something for shock. Can you do that, boy, or shall I get Miss Granger to do it?"

"Yes, Professor…" Mumbled Neville. Harry was mildly surprised that Neville and Luna had been amongst those who'd come down to face the Werewolves. Then again, Neville had proven on more than one occasion that his usually meek exterior dropped away in tight spots, revealing a true Gryffindorian disregard for personal well-being.

"_Professor!_" Hermione's voice was sharp.

Harry peered around McGonagall to see his friend kneeling at Remus's _human_ head, holding the older man's hand. Harry hadn't even noticed that Remus had transformed. Someone had covered him with a cloak to save what little dignity he had left, but his dignity was the last thing that currently seemed to trouble him. Remus was frantically struggling to raise his head, glaring meaningfully at Minerva because he had no strength to call her.

"Professor! He's saying something!" shrilled Hermione, who, with help from Professor Vector, was helping to prop Lupin's head up.

McGonagall walked quickly back to Remus and went down on her knees next to him, bringing her face very close to his.

Harry heard the faintest of whispers as Remus struggled to make himself heard. Some subconscious part of himself noted that Hermione too had leaned forward to listen to what Lupin was telling McGonagall.

That was when Madame Pomfrey came running across the courtyard. In the bustle that ensued, Hermione was pushed back by the crowd of attendees trying to get Lupin on the stretcher and found herself next to Harry.

"You alright?" she asked him tenderly. She ran her dirty hands through her hair and managed to get some of Lupin's blood all over her face.

"Oh God, Hermione," gasped Ron in horror and began using his own shirt sleeve to get it off her.

"Come on, Harry." Neville began ushering him after the medical gaggle and the zoo of professors who were currently herding Lupin's prone form up to the infirmary.

"Where are you taking him?" demanded Ginny a little too harshly, considering that she was talking to _Neville_.

"To the infirmary. Professor McGonagall said he had shock…" Neville withered beneath Ginny's gaze, but put out his hand and firmly gripped Harry by the arm as if Ginny was going to have to fight him for his bespectacled friend..

But Ginny peered into Harry's face worriedly, instead. "I'll come with you."

"You know, I think it'd be better if Madame Pomfrey cured him for Beelzy-Bub Beetle eggs," began Luna serenely. "They crawl up your insides when you go to the bathroom and-"

"Wait," Harry croaked. "Wait…" He tried to turn back, but couldn't do so without Ginny and Neville's help. He found himself watching Hermione and Ron who were frantically discussing something in whispers. "Hermione…"

His two best friends jumped guiltily.

"Harry," began Hermione. "I know what you're going to ask and I don't think now's the best time to-"

"What did he say, Hermione?" slurred Harry. He suddenly felt very sleepy. "What did Lupin say?"

Hermione hesitated, looking slightly irritated at the fact that there were so many people around to hear what she obviously had wanted to keep to herself. This only made Luna, Ginny and Neville lean in closer, closing in the circle. Ron remained a distance from them, arms folded, his brow creased with anxiety. It appeared he'd already heard what Lupin had to say.

Hermione took a deep breath. "He said, "Medusa's out."

X

Madame Pomfrey dismissed Harry early the next morning, with the express order that he eat a large breakfast. When asked if Lupin was going to make it, she could only look at Harry with a cryptically miserable expression and tell him to come back later. Feeling exceedingly isolated and still a little numb and disoriented from the potion she'd given him the night before, he made his way down to the Great Hall.

He was so used to people falling silent upon his entrance, by now, that he barely noticed it. But perhaps it was also a testimony to how dulled his senses were when he realised that he'd also sat down without seeing Ron or Hermione. They weren't at the table.

" Potter."

Harry swivelled in his seat and looked up. It was Professor McGonagall. Or Headmistress McGonagall; he'd never get used to that.

"Come see me in my office the moment you're done breakfast." She patted his shoulder gently as she walked away.

Harry felt sorry for her. She looked like she hadn't slept all night.

"You better skip breakfast and go see Ron and Hermione right now, then," murmured Ginny, not even looking at him.

He stared at her. He hadn't even noticed that he'd sat down next to her. Looking down the table, a couple of the other Gryffindor boys were glaring at him. _As if the shaky situation between him and Ginny mattered at a time like this..._

"Why?" he asked. "What's going on?"

An expression of …of _something_…twisted across Ginny's face, narrowing her eyes and filling them with tears.

"_Just GO, Harry."_ she spat, rising out of her seat and quickly walking out of the Great Hall. The doors slammed closed behind her, leaving that familiar, lonely aching in Harry's stomach to keep him company.

X

"There he is!" Ron leapt out of the booth they usually sat in while doing homework… or conspiring to defeat evil. "You got the message, then?"

"Yeah," said Harry with disgust. "You couldn't have told anyone but _Ginny_ to tell me to come to the Library, Ron?"

Ron looked puzzled for a spilt-second, before it dawned on him that this perhaps hadn't been the best idea.

"Ron, you didn't!" Hermione rolled her eyes.

"Sorry. Was she really upset?"

"Bit my head off…" muttered Harry.

"She feels left out, you know," sighed Hermione. "She doesn't understand why you let us help you but not her."

"If I had my way, you wouldn't be anywhere near me," Harry spoke through clenched teeth. "Why am I _here _and missing breakfast?"

"Harry," Hermione licked her lips and slid forward on the fake leather seat. "Did you get a chance to think about what Lupin said yesterday?"

"Some," he admitted. "But it meant nothing to me. Who…or what…is this 'Medusa' ? And what does he mean by "Medusa's out" ? And why should we care? " He stopped. Once again, Ron and Hermione had shared a look. He leaned forward. "You've found something, haven't you? Oh Hermione, you're brilliant!"

"Well, we wouldn't be here, if she hadn't," said Ron, rather proudly.

Harry could remember a time when Hermione's affinity for the library _irritated _Ron.

"What's 'Medusa' ?"

"Not 'what'. 'Who'." Hermione corrected him. She reached forward into a huge pile of wide-girthed, leather bound tomes branded with the Hogwarts crest and the words 'School Years 1970-1980'. At a touch of Hermione's wand, the book snapped open and the pages flickered by until they fell open on a Slytherin quidditch team from the mid to late seventies.

Harry's first thought on seeing the picture was, _Lucius Malfoy; a beater. How appropriate._

Then Hermione's hand broke his line of vision as her finger jabbed down right on to the Seeker, at the very front of the photo. "That…" she insisted. "Is Medusa Judasine Zabini."

It would have been more logical to say that Harry felt nothing as he stared at this completely unknown girl, grinning back at him, out of these ancient school books. But something about her, something about how she had stared down the photographer sent shivers down his spine.

Then, there were the other discrepancies in the photo. Discrepancies like the fact that everyone else on the quidditch team was later famously linked for being in cahoots with Voldemort. There was Lucius, and Rudolphus and his younger brother Rabastan Lestrange, _and_ of course his future wife, Bellatrix. Amacus and Adolph Brussier; the whole inner circle.

This…Medusa… appeared to be the youngest member of the team. The rest of them appeared to be at least sixteen, but she appeared to be all of the tender age of thirteen.

And of course she was lovely.

Harry didn't know what creeped him out more; the fact that her bone structure was very similar to Draco Malfoy's but darker, or the fact that her hair was just like Ginny's but jet black. Then of course there was the undeniable striking resemblance to Blaise Zabini.

"Any relation to Blaise?" He asked.

"You know his black-widow of a mother?" Ron touched the year book with his wand, making the pages flip. "That's her little sister. She's his aunt." The pages fell open on a photo of the seeker, Medusa, in dress robes, laughing joyously, with her arms thrown around a slightly older girl who bore an amazing resemblance to her. She and this other girl could almost be two peas in a pod, the stuff that twins were made of, except that the other girl was evidently a lot older, better… 'endowed' …and_ incredibly _beautiful. The inscription underneath the photo stated: _Morgana (Silver Dress) and Medusa (Green Dress) Zabini; Yule Ball._

_Wow! Blaise's mother's HOT…_ thought Harry darkly. _Explains how she can keep getting married despite her long list of mysteriously expiring husbands._

Yet.

There was no doubt; though Morgana Zabini was the shinier coin in the purse, Harry's eyes kept being drawn back to Medusa. He couldn't tell why. Their faces were very similar, but Morgana's was logically _better_, heart-shaped in contrast to her sister's strong jaw, framed in ringletted hair in contrast to Medusa's plainer thick waves and the darkest, deepest black eyes Harry had ever seen, fenced in by a fringe of velvety lashes. Medusa, on the other hand, had these very odd amber coloured irises that made her look mildly reptilian or feline. Even when she was laughing they seemed narrowed, as if she was eternally up to no good. There was just something off about her. Where Blaise Zabini's mother had a voluptuous vulnerability, a tender sexiness, a maternal whorishness, the kind that _would_ appeal to men who didn't know any better, something about his aunt spoke of a sheathed blade, steel wrapped in silk, a barren, burning femininity that so firmly contrasted her elder sister's Earth Mother image. Both girls were wearing shoulder baring dresses; instead of the skinny softness revealed by her sister, Medusa's shoulders bunched with muscle as she embraced her sister in the photograph. _An Artemis and an Aphrodite with the same last name…_

"I take it she was a good athlete?" Harry gauged from Medusa's muscle-mass.

"You know how you're the youngest quidditch player in a century?" said Hermione. "She's the second youngest. She'd just turned twelve when the Slytherins put her on the team. And it wasn't even allowed, before then. I mean _really allowed. _Took a lot of influence to put her on the team. Lucius Malfoy's father, I'm guessing; Lord Bartholemeux Malfoy."

"Does the nepotism ever stop?" Ron rolled his eyes.

"How can it, when the entirety of the Wizarding world is related to each other?" Hermione shrugged, then leaned forward to look Harry in the eye. "Are you keeping up with all this?"

"Yes, this is all well and good but why should I care? Why should Remus care? He was on the point of death and all he could talk about was this…girl…"

"Harry….you….he….Tell him, Ron."

Ron took a deep breath. "SO I didn't tell you coz I didn't want you to go mental, but a month or so ago, when we were still at The Burrow, I got up to go to the bathroom, one night and I heard my mum and Dad talking about Remus going undercover amongst the werewolves to keep tabs on the Death Eaters' plans."

For a moment, Harry was speechless; he was intensely agog with this information. Then, "RON! HERMIONE!"

"_SHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!_" hissed Madame Pince from the front desk.

"Sit down; this is more important." Hermione grabbed his shirt and pulled him back down into his seat again. "Well, you saw him yesterday, right? AND you heard all the howling? The werewolves were chasing him down. They wanted him dead. Which means he must have broken his cover to get here and tell McGonagall exactly what he told her yesterday. Which means…"

"…that this Medusa person is somehow important." finished Harry, calming down. "We've got to find out why, then."

"We already know why." said Ron gesturing to whole pile of old Daily Prophet copies. "And it's not good."

"What do you mean?" asked Harry worriedly.

"Look at this picture again, Harry." Hermione pointed at the Yule Ball photo. "This was taken at the beginning of the Dark Lord's rise, when people were aware of him but before any of his huge successes. The ministry was adamantly weeding out Dark Lord followers and the Death Eaters as we know them today had not formed yet. The Slytherins had it bad, back then, because most of them truly had nothing to do with Voldemort. If you look at the class photos during the Yule ball that same year, hardly anyone's wearing green or silver at all. Even most of the Slytherins are wearing pinks and reds and golds…"

"Going incognito…" Ron interjected.

"The braver ones, like Lucius and Narcissa are wearing black or white…purist colours not affiliated with _any_ house, but previously associated with Slytherin…" said Hermione.

"But…" Ron raised his eyebrows.

Harry frowned at the photo. "But these two are…"

"Proudly wearing green and silver. There were two photographers at the party. The first one was a fanatic Anti-Voldemortist who kept harassing the Slytherins when they came up to have their photos taken."

"Serves them right, the bastards…" muttered Ron.

His girlfriend ignored him. "Some of the first year Slytherins were bursting into tears or refusing to have their photos taken. Then it came to be the Zabini sisters' turn. Morgana went first and he asked her what she was thinking wearing silver. She cleverly replied that she merely liked the colour and thought she looked good in it. She very smartly and very coyly seduceded him into taking this photo of the both of them, then another very nice one just of her.

When he asked Medusa why she was wearing green, and if she knew that green was the colour of the practitioners of the Dark Arts, she simply smiled at him…and set him on fire."

There was a silence. Harry sat back stunned. "She _what_?"

"Well that's not entirely accurate," said Ron. "His trousers _caught_ fire. No one knows how, exactly…"

Hermione made a noise of disgust at Ron's naivety and he turned to her with his hands spread neutrally. "It's true, Hermione. The Hall was full of people. If she'd cast the spell someone would have heard her."

"RON!" Hermione grabbed handfuls of her own hair. "Ron, she could've cast a voiceless charm!"

"She was only fourteen, that year, Hermione…" Harry peered at the date beneath the photograph. "You only start learning voiceless charms in Sixth…"

"She was a years ahead of everyone else, Harry! She jumped grades in third year!"

"That's impossible," said Harry, hesitantly smiling at Hermione, who was looking more manic by the second. "Sirius always said you were the brightest witch of our age and _you_ barely survived third year without skipping a grade…"

"Yes, well, what Sirius said was more true than we knew," moaned Hermione. "I _am_ the brightest which of _our_ age. Just _our_ age, though, because he'd already met the brightest which of _his_ age. .."

"Are you saying…" Harry suddenly found it difficult to swallow.

Hermione wordlessly touched her wand to the yearbook. Its pages flew past for a couple of seconds before they fell open on a page emblazoned with maroon and saffron banners with little, gold pouncing lions on them. The caption under the photo in the centre of the page plainly stated: James Potter (Vermillion dress robes) and Sirius Black (Scarlet dress robes); Yule Ball.

"Is…is this the same year?"

"It's the same party, mate," Ron murmured.

"Here," Hermione flipped the pages again to the list of graduating grades a few years later. "Look! Look what she graduated with! She took every subject the school could offer, with the help of a time turner I'm sure, but she did every single NEWT she could get her hands on and graduated with a flawless list of 'Outstandings' , and a quidditch cup, _and_ a house cup! Look! Look! She even got an 'Outstanding' in DIVINATION! _Divination_, I tell you!"

"Easy, Hermione," Ron patted her arm.

"SO what! So she's clever and she went to school with my parents and was probably as criminal as most of her house! So what?" yelled Harry. His head was spinning.

"She's not _just_ clever; she was a prodigy, the pride of the Slytherins. And she wasn't _just _criminal. Lucius Malfoy's criminal. Her sister, Morgana's criminal. Even Bellatrix could be called criminal…"

"And mental…" muttered Ron.

"Medusa was ruthless, Harry. And she wasn't just academically clever. She got out of every bit of trouble she ever committed at Hogwarts, slippery as a snake. And she didn't just take inhumane liberties, she believed that she was _entitled_ to them! Here. Look," Hermione placed a crinkled, yellowing copy of the Daily Prophet in front of him, folded open on the first page's cover story. The picture there was a portrait of an older Medusa, in her final years at Hogwarts. Her face revealed nothing in the photo, but her eyes swivelled from side to side slowly, as if she were neutrally watching what was happening around her without much care as to what happened to her. "Do you know," Hermione went on. "… the very next year, she was found in the same room as a boy who'd been attacked by the same shredding spell you used on Malfoy, last year…"

Harry cringed and convulsed with dread.

"Except you did it by mistake," said Hermione hurriedly, gripping his hand. "When they found this boy, he was barely more than a puddle on the floor at her feet. Cut all over and bleeding heavily! And when asked if she'd done it she said she hadn't cut him up, but she'd been hoping he'd bleed to death. Cold as you please, smug as ever. There are reports of the incident that insinuate that the investigators at the time could have sworn she'd done it but had nothing but circumstantial evidence against her; she'd planned it that well. Did it in the Room of Requirement and everything, Harry. It was phenomenal. She'd _wanted_ to _kill_ this boy. She hadn't failed for lack of trying, that's for sure. And she was only fifteen, at the time."

Harry looked down at the paper in front of him. Indeed, the title beneath the picture of Medusa read: _Monsters Amongst Us! Medusa Zabini Accused of Attempted Murder…_

"That's impossible," he found himself saying. "Dumbledore would have thrown her out if she'd really done it. He would've found a reason to toss her out if she'd been that bad…"

"He always believed that she was somehow redeemable. Infact, he kind of liked her," replied Hermione. "But he's made mistakes before. I mean…Snape…"

"And Riddle himself," added Ron quietly. "Professor Dumbledore knew how rotten Riddle was and he still kept him in Hogwarts."

"Let's face it," Hermione shrugged helplessly. "Dumbledore always believed that Hogwarts was a cure for all of society's miscreants…even when it was obvious to the rest of the world that there just wasn't a hope for some of them."

"Then again," said Ron, in a thoughtful tone. "No one could touch Medusa by then. She could have killed that boy in the Great Hall and no one could've done anything."

"Why?" asked Harry.

"It was the height of Death Eater power, Harry. They were everywhere, amongst the Aurors, in the ministry, in Hogwarts. Think about it. What class had graduated that year?"

It took Harry a moment to think through what Hermione was trying to say. Then, it dawned on him. "All the Death Eaters…they were a couple of years older than her…"

"Hogwarts had just given Voldemort his army." finished Hermione.

X

The sunlight shone through the crevice of a window by their table, igniting flecks in the air, making them dance down, spiralling serenely in the quiet it took for the three friends to digest all this information.

"Okay, up till now she's still pretty typical Death Eater fare," said Harry sitting forward again. "Maybe a bit smarter. They're popping up all over the place now. What's so special about her that Remus would risk his life to tell us she'd come back?"

"Good question," sighed Hermione. "But she's not back."

"She's not?"

"No," replied Ron. "She's not back. She's _out."_

"Out? Out of where?"

"Azkaban," Hermione took a deep breath. "And _this_ is the scary part."

"It may seem like Voldemort's had a lot of right-hand men, Wormtail, Lucius, Barty Crouch, Snape, but in reality he's only ever had one true favourite.

When Lord Cassander Zabini was killed under mysterious circumstances, he left two young daughters and a mad wife badly in need of money. At first they could do nothing but survive on the donations made by their relatives. The Lestranges took in Morgana for a time, Blaise Zabini's mother, which explains her flare for the feminine. She must have had to excel at being the most perfect little girl if she were to be approved of in the household that also held Bellatrix, Narcissa and Andromeda…"

"Who?" Harry blinked.

"Tonk's mother," explained Hermione. "Medusa, on the other hand, was given to the Malfoys. Harry, we found photos of Lucius with her in his lap. He virtually raised her."

"Not surprised," said Harry. "Anyway, go on. Where was their mother? Why did she let them go to other people's homes?"

"Their mother was locked up in St. Mungo's Mental Ward," Ron pushed another ancient copy of the Daily Prophet in front of Harry. The headlines read: _Infamous Voodoo Priestess Loses Her Marbles-Children to be divided amongst relatives…Not Literally._

"Voodoo?"

"She was an African queen, straight from the continent," Ron shrugged. "Lots of people say, in the paper, that she was evidently already a few crayons short of a box when Cassander Zabini brought her home as a trophy wife. Must be all the unbridled dark magic. She was a high priestess in the Arts, after all. Must have rattled her brains eventually…"

"And Zabini married her?"

"Well," Hermione growled through gritted teeth. "If you call locking her up in a cage and shipping her away from her home to his castle in the South of England marriage, then yes. He married her. Apparently she refused to nurse the girls after she'd given birth to them, so you can guess how _they_ were conceived…"

"That's sick!" Indeed, Harry had turned a sweaty shade of puce. "Why would he do that?"

"Lord Zabini was huge advocate of the pure bloodlines. Most of the purebloods we see today aren't actually true purebloods. At one point they married into muggles; they had to, to survive. The farther back you had to marry into the muggle gene pool, though, the better you're considered by the Death Eaters. It means your family's had a chance to dilute that blood to a bare minimum by intermarrying amongst other pureblood families…"

"Sounds like a recipe for Malfoy…" snorted Harry.

Ron sniggered.

"Or Ron," shrugged Hermione.

"Hey!"

She ignored her boyfriend again. "Anyway, it was the same with Cassander, except that that part of himself disgusted him so much that he vowed to erase it with the purest line of magical blood he could find. His children would be as close to completely pureblood as he could get them without altering his own genetics. So he kidnapped this woman, Sheba, a Shamaness daughter of a long, long, long line of African witchdoctors, annihilated her tribe and then kept her locked up in a tower for years. Of course, by the time she was let out again, after his death, she really _had_ lost her mind."

"Which brings us to Voldemort and his own obsession with pureblood. Looking around him as he was rising into power, Medusa caught his eye. She was pretty, popular, heartless, proud and had some of the most ancient undiluted pureblood in her veins this side of the equator."

"Which explains why Blaise Zabini's always been a bit frosty to Malfoy. Here's Draco pretending to be the big guns in Slytherin when in reality Zabini's always been the alpha!" spat Harry. "He's probably a spy!"

"Not likely," Ron shook his head from side to side.

"Why?" asked Harry.

"It's true that Blaise's mother was always as prejudiced and superior as the rest of the Slytherins put together. And she's always been a murdering whore…"

"RON!"

"If the shoe fits!" cried Ron indignantly. "Well anyway, despite all that, she's always had a great fear of all things Death Eater. She never jumped on to the bandwagon; it was the only thing her and Medusa never agreed on. Later on, she shut up, of course, and even stopped talking to her sister altogether. Voldemort wasn't going to have Morgana talk the apple of his eye out of being the heir to his throne. That's about the same time Blaise's father, Morgana's first husband 'accidentally' Aveda Kadavera-ed himself and she conveniently moved to Greece to marry hubby number two: Greek Billionaire Truphocalis Hyde, creator of Troo Hyde Dragon Saddles Incorporated. Blaise's dad left Morgana everything of course. They all did. Up to the seventh."

"Meanwhile, Medusa , thinking she'd been abandoned by her only surviving family, began to add to her list of crimes and murders. She was a bloody scourge, Voldemort's proud general. He lavished her with attention when he treated everyone else like dirt. Some people would even say that, as much as Tom Riddle _could_ feel emotion, he wished Medusa had been his child. He couldn't have children because he'd split himself into the Horcuxes, but that didn't matter because Medusa was worthy. Worthy of being his heir and General…which brings us to the most important point in this long history lesson." Hermione paused to breathe, and Ron took up the story again.

"No one could ever keep up with her when it came to pleasing Voldemort. He ran every plan by her, sent her on the most important missions, let her run the faction of the Death Eaters in charge of taking over the ministry. And she never let him down, either. Infact she always went above and beyond. He was the father figure she'd always craved…"

"Didn't Lucius fill that role?"

"Lucius was more like a big brother. But Voldemort? I don't know, Harry. Maybe it was because she could do no wrong by him. You know; like a cycle. He loves her so she loves him back for loving her. Well anyway, she had a habit of openly criticizing the rest of the Death Eaters, testing their loyalty. No one spoke to Voldemort without going through Medusa, and if Medusa said she didn't like someone, they could be sure to fall in the ranks. There are accounts of Death Eaters trying to kill _her_ on several occasions…"

"They were afraid of her." Harry's eyes widened in comprehension.

"Yeah," nodded Ron. "They were terrified of her. You couldn't get by her, with force or flattery. She was perfect for weeding out traitors and doubters and they were both treated alike. So when she was put in Azkaban, it was almost a relief for _everyone_. She was only twenty and they left her there. I mean, a lot of them were in Azkaban for a very long time, but they got out the moment Voldemort came back. Not Medusa, though. Even the Death Eaters wanted her on the inside. She was too much of a wild card."

"But…wouldn't she be one of the first people Voldemort would rescue out of Azkaban? If he really did think she was the only person worthy of being his heir?"

Ron and Hermione looked stumped. Hermione looked hugely perturbed, as if an inability to find information somehow meant she'd lost her edge. "We…we can't explain that one. We don't know why he didn't get her out the moment he could."

"But now she _is_ out. He got her out, finally. Why? Why would they need her now?" Harry ran his fingers through his hair, making it stand on end like the spikes of a demented hedgehog.

"Well," Hermione bit her lip. "We don't know why the Death Eaters have chosen to spring her out of Azkaban now. But what we do know is…Harry…she was with Voldemort when he killed your parents."


	3. The Prodigal Returns

**Chapter 2. The Prodigal Returns**

Whatsoever I've feared has come to life  
Whatsoever I've fought off became my life  
Just when everyday seemed to greet me with a smile  
Sunspots have faded  
And now I'm doing time  
Cause I fell on black days

Whomsoever I've cured I've sickened now  
Whomsoever I've cradled I've put you down  
I'm a search light soul they say  
But I cant see it in the night  
I'm only faking when I get it right  
Cause I fell on black days  
How would I know  
That this could be my fate

So what you wanted to see good has made you blind  
And what you wanted to be yours has made it mine  
So don't you lock up something that you wanted to see fly  
Hands are for shaking  
No, not tying  
No, not tying

I sure don't mind a change  
But I fell on black days  
How would I know  
That this could be my fate

I sure don't mind the change.

**"Fell On Black Days" **

**Soundgarden, Chris Cornell.**

………………………………

She opened her eyes.

So _that_ colour had been the insides of her eyelids. And that colour was…..?

_Orange,_ hissed Hiss sweetly, like a lover seducing.

And this piercing, painful radiance?

_The Sun,_ whispered Hiss lovingly, oh-so-gently. _We're out. You're out. We're free._

Free. A derivative of 'Freedom', a word found under 'F' in the dictionary.

Medusa, surprisingly enough, didn't feel anything. She felt nothing at Hiss's devoted celebratory declamation. She was out of Azkaban. But once you'd been in Azkaban, freedom was never truly yours again, was it?

Medusa felt nothing, but she was dimly aware that, somewhere deep inside her, buried in a dark nook or cranny of her consciousness where it had retreated for privacy, Jabber was weeping.

So instead, with the clinical disassociation of those who'd seen too much and knew it, she began to conduct a sensory inventory of her physical self.

Alright, now _this_ was surprising. Asides from a dull numbness in her joints, a bruise-like tenderness like a slight sunburn in her muscles, she felt….fine. Weak, heavy like she weighed a tonne, though she knew for a fact that malnutrition must have left her a waif by now, but…but…she could _move_. She hadn't been able to simply _move_ in…forever.

She carefully rolled over in bed, still wary and expectant of shooting, punishing pains for her audacity, but pleasantly found nothing but that faint tenderness she'd experienced before, then froze in shock.

The room around her had no mercy on a soul that hadn't even had sunlight for close to two decades.

Firstly, her bed was covered in satin sheets of woven with dizzying, coiling patterns of dark green, silver and black, gleaming and swimming in the sunlight that kept shining then diminishing, peeking in and out of the room every few seconds.

And the sun's coy fluttering? Caused by billowing chiffon curtains in a light cream colour, that languidly filled then deflated like a boat's sails or giant lungs, with air that breezily belied the strong, shining heat of the dancing golden god, outside.

And the smell! The smell of sand, salt, childhoods in Africa, throwing mud, magically making seashell crowns for herself and Morgana, and _blue_ water stretching for miles and miles and miles to the horizon.

Freedom.

And the_ sound_….the _sound_ came in from the open balcony windows. That _sound_, the sound of rolling, crashing waves and seagulls crying. It was like God…breathing….

Medusa lay where she lay and did nothing but function, her senses clamouring; breathe in salt, listen to the faint ocean calling her name from the balcony and watch the slow, luxurious sway of the canopy and nets spiralled and spread over the bed in rich stretches of mint and emerald green. She must have lay in exactly that same position for an entire hour when her overloaded mind began to actually form coherent thoughts again.

Her first thought was, _Where am I?_

Her second thought was, _I want to be near…the colours… _

………………………………...

She trailed her hand across the wallpaper, feeling the detail of the coiling gold wreaths on the silky underlay of forest green and white.

It had taken her time to get out of bed; it was bizarre but it almost seemed like she'd forgotten how to bend at the waist. When she'd finally gotten to her feet, though, she managed to take baby steps all around the room, running her hands up and down the walls, through the curtains, across the carved backs of the cherry wood furniture.

She'd also made more personal discoveries. Her finger and toe nails had been carefully clipped and the long black hair, though still ragged, had been preliminarily trimmed and spilled in well-combed waves down to her knees. She was wearing a long, elegantly embroidered gown of gold, cream and aquamarine, gleaming beneath the waves of vine-like, creeping ebony hair.

Seventeen years' worth of hair. She could strangle someone with it. She really had turned into a gorgon.

_Someone's taken care of us_, said Jabber. _We've been cleaned and clothed…_

_And fed,_ added Hiss. _We wouldn't be able to move right now if someone hadn't fed us._

_Who? _Jabber wondered hopefully. _Who still loves us? Sirius?_

No, thought Medusa. Sirius was dead. Remus had sent her a letter expressly telling her that. Her and Remus had never really liked each other, but he'd never been the type to wilfully lie. Not even to his enemies.

If Remus said that Sirius was dead, then Sirius was definitely dead.

Besides, she had known the moment she'd opened the letter. Something about the way it was written. Something about the way it had broken her weary heart, the final incantation in a long spell turning her into rock.

_Medusa,_

_Sirius is dead. I thought you should know. _

_Remus._

She hadn't even cried. She'd simply dropped the letter and stared at a wall for days. She'd been beyond anything so therapeutic as crying. Crying would have meant that there was still space inside her for the grief to spill over.

No. The person who'd dressed her in silks was the only _other_ person she'd ever truly cared about.

_Her first memory, holding someone's hand…looking up …to see another girl, only ever so slightly older, radiant face framed in long dark curls, smiling down at her…like her mother… but different…_

The gleam of reflected light in her eyes called her attention to a mirror, like a doorway to an alternate universe, gilded in gold.

Except in that universe, someone was looking back at her.

The moment Medusa realised that she was looking at herself in the mirror was, perhaps, the most disconcerting of her experience so far. She'd gotten used to thinking of herself as formless, invisible, a ghost, a shadow and this undeniable reminder of her corporeal existence shook her.

She existed. She very solidly existed. Not only that, but the colour she'd missed so sorely, the life she'd thought had left her, had, all along, been _in her! _Why! _Why! WHY_ were there no mirrors in Azkaban! That truly was the greatest torture the Aurors committed against their prisoners, more terrible than the Dementors and the dark.

Without a mirror, she'd never realised that colour had been with her all along, in the strange, sharp yellow of her eyes, life carried in the pigmentation of her face.

_Hello, old friend…_she thought as she put a hand forward and touched fingers with her reflection.

There she was, with a torn mouth, white running through her hair, the scar weeping from her right eye to her jaw, and deep, black bags under her startling eyes. Her skin was translucently pale, blue veined like a deep-sea fish despite her ethnicity, as if she'd been a pencil mark Azkaban had been gradually rubbing out.

She'd everything but wasted away.

She was _still_ here.

_I'm alive,_ she thought in amazement. _I've made it. I'm really...really...out._

She heard the a click and squeak as the door at the corner of her eye suddenly swung open.

A woman, dressed in long black robes watched her for a moment, then languidly leaned against the door frame, arms crossed.

Medusa turned to look at her elder sister. A flash of that first memory blew into her mind like an indefinable scent. This was that girl, who'd held her hand and smiled…but she'd changed beyond recognition.

The years had been kind to Morgana. _She_ still looked deathly beautiful, for a mother approaching her forties. There certainly was no white in _her_ hair.

The Zabini sisters stared wordlessly at each other. There were too many things to say. Too many accusations, too much blame, too many apologies.

"I see you've found the mirror." Morgana finally murmured.

Medusa said nothing.. The mirror had gone a long way to restoring her sense of self, but she still wasn't sure she could actually conduct a conversation. Or even speak. She wasn't even sure whether, if she _did_ decide to speak, it would actually be her speaking, or Jabber and Hiss.

"Are you going to stand there, looking like a startled deer for much longer?" asked Morgana, frustration seeping into her sarcasm.

Medusa hadn't realised that she was standing like a startled deer. She knew that it probably angered Morgana to see her little sister, once one to strike fear into many hearts, freeze in fearful expectation of violence, but Medusa couldn't help the hard-learnt reflexes she'd won in Azkaban.

So once again, she said and did nothing, except maybe, move her eyes from side to side as she wondered what exactly a startled deer might look like.

Morgana took a deep, bracing breath and let it out slowly, staring at her sister in burdened bewilderment. Perhaps she'd thought that merely doctoring Medusa physically would have cured her of all prison's ills. She must have worked hard to keep Medusa alive, but nothing could mend a cracked soul. Medusa wondered if her sister knew that.

"Come on," murmured Morgana, turning on her heel. Medusa watched her sister's black skirts twirl hypnotically. Somewhere amongst the folds, bells tinkled. Trust Morgana to wear bells in her skirts; how could any man resist that? "Dinner's on the terrace. We can watch the sunset, if your head doesn't explode."

………………………………...

Incidentally, Medusa's head didn't explode when she watched the sun set, but her eyes did widen considerably in panic at the concept of actually eating something…._with _cutlery.

Morgana stared at her in absolute disbelief, as she finally dared to reach forward, snatch a bread roll, and put it gently on her plate, then commence staring at it, as if it would get up and go home at any moment.

"You know, you're _supposed_ to eat that," said Morgana.

Again, Medusa simply stared at her wordlessly, with that irritating blank expression, as if she was speaking another language.

Cursing colourfully, Morgana leaned forward and violently forked roast beef, potatoes, vegetables and more bread on to Medusa's plate, despite the almost comical look of terror the pile of food received from her little sister.

They stared at each other.

"Don't look at me like that; you've been eating it for weeks, now. _And_ dessert. You've just been…unconscious…most of the time."

The concept of Morgana spooning Strawberry Torte into her indifferent mouth while she was unconscious was comedic, but Medusa didn't want to insult her sister further. She was obviously doing so well without even trying, and she'd missed her too much to wilfully mock her…just yet.

"Should I cut it for you?" asked Morgana, suddenly doubtful. Then, when Medusa again denied her any kind of answer, the older woman began to curse again, scraped her chair closer to her sister's, grabbed the fork and knife and began cutting up the roast beef into tiny strips, as if she were attempting to feed a child.

But halfway though slicing the second piece, Morgana's breathing became uneven, then she began blinking furiously, then tears began to unabashedly fall into Medusa's food as Morgana's composure finally buckled and she started to sob, hiding her face and her frustration in her hands.

Medusa looked on miserably, helplessly. She wished she could reach out and at least pat her sister comfortingly on the back, but she didn't want to pollute the one beautiful thing she had left in her life. So instead, she grabbed a fork, and awkwardly attempted to spear one of the escaping pieces of beef.

Morgana heard the clink of silverware on porcelain and raised her mascara smeared face above the shield of her hands to see her sister determinedly take the meat into her mouth and begin chewing with intense concentration.

A burst of laughter escaped her, then she reached forward to cut up more of the meat.

She completely missed Medusa's first smile in seventeen years.

………………………………...

It took her an hour of trying, but Medusa also managed to speak that evening.

They'd been quiet for so long that Morgana had dozed off in her seat, wisps of hair whipping about her face in the powerful ocean breeze.

Medusa hadn't known how to wake her gently; in fact she hadn't been sure if she would even manage to say what she wanted, and what she had to say had become feverishly important in the space of time it had take her to actually perk up the courage to voice it. So instead of gently waking her sister, she simply said:

"Where am I?"

Morgana started awake, more out of shock that her sister had actually spoken, than actual startlement. She hadn't been completely asleep, just dozing, but she certainly hadn't expected to hear her sister's voice after the …_charming_ dinner conversation.

Taking a moment to pull herself together, she rubbed her numb face , then replied, "Greece. Husbby number two's house."

Medusa wondered fleetingly how many 'late husbands' there had been up to date, but felt there were more pressing matters at hand.

"Why am I here?"

A flash of anger gleamed in Morgana's eyes. "You're an escaped Azkaban convict, and a former Death Eater to boot. Where did you want to be? Hogwarts?"

Silence.

"How did I get here?"

Again, Morgana look doubtful, as if she wasn't sure what to tell Medusa exactly. "Lucius…Lucius brought you here…in the middle of the God dammed night…three weeks ago."

_Ah yes._

_Lucius._

_I suppose I owe him, now._

_Bastard._

Silence. Then…

"How is Blaise?" asked Medusa hesitantly, then instantly regretted it. A child with the Zabini name meant the continuation of their line; Blaise translated literally into 'Life', in Medusa's head, and she saw herself literally as 'Death' personified, not so arrogant as to think of herself of the Scourge of Slytherin anymore, but a dead thing, a thing that probably would be sickly for the rest of her life and never truly whole again. Morgana, to Medusa, had always been a fertility goddess, an Earth-Mother, and Blaise…Blaise was ultimate proof of that. A healthy, male heir.

By mentioning him, Medusa somehow felt that she was tainting that life, as Death always hung in the shadows and breathed down Life's neck.

Morgana watched her sister steadfastly stare at the floor and guessed what was running through her head.

"He's fantastic." she said. Then, "Actually, he's not."

"Why?"

"He's turning into you."

………. "I don't understand."

"He's incredibly smart, incredibly arrogant, just plain incredible, and he won't listen to reason anymore." Morgana's voice cracked slightly. "He doesn't….he doesn't need me anymore. I'm not his mother anymore; I'm just…a silly woman…a woman who plagues him…and babies him when he wants to be a man and just…just gets in the way of everything! He…he wants to move out…"

Hiss suddenly came alive and laughed inside Medusa's head. _Well, this is ironic. The one man she'd do anything to keep and he's leaving her… _

But something else her sister said had caught Medusa's attention too.

And for the first time since getting out of prison, something a lot like 'Life' blossomed weakly deep in her bowls: _Anger…._

You see, Morgana had never been conservative in anyway; Morgana _never_ gave advice to people because she didn't believe in vice to be adverse to it! Morgana Zabini had always believed that people ought to be able to do whatever the hell they wanted to do with their lives, no matter what society thought.

Except in one instance…The one time Morgana had tried to give Medusa advice had been the last time they'd seen each other, seventeen years ago. Needless to say, _that_ goodbye had not been a loving one…

"He's making the wrong friends, Medusa," moaned Morgana. "He's making the wrong friends…"

A beast awoke inside Medusa and lifted its ugly head, grinning, a beast long chained and beaten by Azkaban. Like the smell of carrion on the wind, the mere mention of 'wrong friends' brought back snapshot montage memories of blood, bone and fire.

The remembered smell of burning flesh still made her saliva run…humans smelt no different than any other creature, cooked.

No, Azkaban had _not_ managed to beat _this_ devil out of her. Pull a vampire's fangs out and it still hungered for blood.

_Death Eaters were no different. _

"Wrong friends," she whispered. "_Old _friends?"

Morgana 's face contorted in wordless terror and Medusa's heart ached for her sister. She could completely understand how Morgana feared Blaise following in his aunt's footsteps. After all, look where they'd taken her….

"So we're still around," murmured Medusa. "And we must be powerful. Blaise wouldn't want to join unless we looked good."

"_WE!"_ howled Morgana, vaulting to her feet. "WE! You're still saying 'WE'! Have you learnt nothing?! What do you mean 'We'!"

"Well, I _am_ going back, Morgana."

This statement floored her sister speechless for an entire minute. Then, when she could speak again, she said, "_Why!?"_

"Because I owe Lucius…"

"Lucius?! Lucius isn't even a Death Eater anymore!"

"….._what?"_

"What, you think he would've broken you out of prison if he _were_?"

Medusa remembered vaguely thinking this, that night Lucius had broken into her cell, but it was all so hazy.

"Wait, what?"

"In case you haven't noticed, the rest of your old gang 's been out of prison for a few years without you, now, Medusa," snarled Morgana.

"Believe me, I've noticed. Now, what's this about Lucius quitting the Death Eaters?"

"He didn't quit. They turned against him."

"They have a habit of doing that…"

"Tell yourself."

Silence.

_Tread carefully. We don't want her to clam up,_ advised Hiss as Jabber squeaked excitedly in the background.

Medusa kept her gaze level with her sisters. She was simply trying to read where this conversation might go if she pushed it, but Morgana felt like a rabbit pinned to the ground by a wolf. Medusa had always had the uncanny ability of pinning people down with her gaze…it was the strange eyes….the strange, liquid amber eyes…

_If she thinks I'm going to go back to the Death Eaters to relive my glory days she's sorely mistaken, _thought Medusa.

_N o one would want to relive YOUR glory days, _jittered Jabber. _No, no. We're going back for Blaise, and Lucius…_

_And us…_ giggled Hiss sensually. _Teach **them** to leave us rotting in jail…_

"Oh my God, you _still_ do it."

Medusa jumped and blinked in confusion. "Do what?"

Morgana was staring at her with an expression fluctuating between disgust and awe. "You had that frightening vacant expression on your face; The 'Empty Windows' face."

"Empty what?"

"'Empty Windows'. I used to call it that, whenever you were thinking with…the _others_. You'd freeze and stare off into space, and your eyes would be open but I'd always get the distinct impression your were somewhere else. Like a house with all the windows lit, but no one home…"

"That's…I didn't know I did that. You never told me…"

"Are…are _those_ two still with you?"

Medusa raised her eyebrows at the question. Both Jabber and Hiss fell over each other laughing.

_Still with you! What kind of question is that?_ Howled Jabber.

_Where else would we be? _wheezed Hiss .

"What were their names again?" asked Morgana, fascinated.

"They don't really have names. They're…more….allocated roles…" Medusa pinched the bridge of her nose. Trying to describe what it was like to live with Jabber and Hiss to someone else was like trying to nail Jell-O to a tree. It hurt her head.

"You know, I once tried to tell Narcissa that the reason you were great at school was because you actually had three people in your head as opposed to one."

"Yeah?"

"She laughed at me and told me I was jealous."

"You were."

"I was. But I wasn't making things up, either. It's what made mother a powerful voodoo priestess…"

"It's also what put her in St. Mungo's."

"Well, she had about twelve people in _her _head…"

"And I have two. Now tell me why Lucius got kicked out of the Death Eaters. What did he do?"

"Lucius made…._Him…_ angry."

_Voldemort. _

Chills ran up and down Medusa's spine, but there seemed to be a giddy heat in her blood too, that was just as powerful. The same giddy heat a sabre tooth tiger must have felt coming face to face with an angry, tusked mammoth.

_Voldemort._

_Riddle._

_Tom….Riddle…._

_The-Man-Who-Lived._

"How?"

"I'm not sure. But…it was huge….the mistake, I mean."

"It would have had to be. Tom always liked Lucius…"

"Please! Don't address him so lightly. It's 'He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named' now. I feel more comfortable with that."

"I prefer just 'Tom'. Anyway, what did Bella say about Lucius being …"

"I don't talk to Bellatrix anymore." snapped Morgana, turning away from Medusa.

_Strange,_ said Hiss.

_Very Strange_, wailed Jabber.

"Why?"

"The Death Eaters…they broke into the Ministry a few years ago and they…she…" Medusa couldn't see her sister's face, but she could see Morgana's hand grip the back of the chair, knuckles white with strain. "Bellatrix pushed… _someone_…. through a mirror…"

_What is she babbling on about? _wondered Hiss impatiently.

"And they died." presumed Medusa.

"Yes…they…he…died…." stuttered Morgana. "A pureblood…"

_A pureblood? Died? Falling through a mirror? _Hiss was disbelieving. _Did he fall in aorta first, I wonder?_

_Hush, don't be petulant,_ tutted Jabber.

_Seriously though, so what? Bella's been killing people, even purebloods, left, right and centre ever since…well her eleventh birthday party, the crazy bitch… _Hiss stated, matter-of-factly. _Remember what she did to the Longbottoms? _

"And this person was….important?" wondered Medusa.

"Yes," whispered Morgana raggedly. "Someone…important."

"Who?" asked Medusa, getting a sudden feeling of foreboding.

Morgana whipped around. "I don't want to talk about this anymore."

_What?! She can't do that, _whined Jabber.

_Oh relax, _purred Hiss. _who could it be anyway? Who cares? Another hapless idiot who probably didn't scramble out of Bella-The-Bull's way fast enough…_

"Alright, Morgana. It doesn't matter." Medusa hadn't realised that she'd leaned forward until now, as she leaned back. She suddenly felt very, very tired.

"Medusa, are you feeling alright?" Morgana knelt by her.

"I think….I think I might just sleep for a while, now, Morgana…I have a lot to think about…"

"I suppose there's no point in begging you not to get involved with your old friends again?" Morgana whispered, in a tone that expressed the very definition of helplessness and hope, rolled into one.

_She'd never understand, _said Hiss bitterly. _She'll think we're just arrogant…_

_And maybe we are,_ murmured Jabber in a rare instant of calm. _But it's not like we have anything to live for…_

"I'll think about it, Morgana. After all, it's not like I _can _go anywhere, just yet. I can barely chew my food…"

………………………………...

McGonagal looked at Potter and developed the sensation of a weighted stone in her stomach.

The boy sat in the chair, flanked by Weasley and Granger, crumpled, bent, head lowered, staring at limp hands, barely clasped in his lap.

Minerva knew, of course, why Harry was steadfastly staring at his hands; this office, so recently belonging to one Albus Dumbledore, Headmaster Extraordinaire, must have appeared so unfamiliar to him now that it bore the décor more suited to McGonagal's taste.

She certainly couldn't blame him. If the 'flipping' process had not been an automatic and magical one, long ingrained into Hogwarts' wards and walls, she herself would have preferred to have left the office the way Dumbledore had had it.

She'd gotten the fright of her life, walking through the door the first day after the funeral to have the walls squeal a squeaky comical fanfare and the walls move of their own volition to different locations, rugs simultaneously springing forth from the ceiling to dangle down heavily, pictures flipping over and rolling around, Dumbledore's tick-tocks and gadgets vanishing to be replaced by dark candelabras, a burning fireplace wreathed in gargoyles and unicorns.

So all in all, although she felt most at home in her new office, she still felt slightly ashamed of how much darker and more austere it was, compared to Albus'. Even if _Granger _seemed to approve.

Now, standing over The Boy-Who-Lived, she braced herself for another difficult task she was about to put to this poor child and decided to dive right into it.

"Potter," she began strictly, she'd always done as his Transfiguration professor and his Head-Of-House. Then, "Harry…" she said softly, putting a hand on his bony shoulder.

_Good gracious, _thought her maternal side. _Doesn't this boy eat? _He'd certainly stretched some, since his first year, but had he thickened? No!

A cough behind her reminded her to get a move on. Trust Kingsley Shacklebolt to have his eye on the time.

Aurors - they were all the same. And right now, Minerva had about five of them crowding her already cozy office.

"Harry, I trust your over-informed friends…" she momentarily flashed a sharp eye at Weasley and Granger, who tried to look innocent, or justified, respectively. "…have informed you of a few crucial historical facts that you may need to be informed of during this meeting…"

_Minerva,_ _you've used the word informed about four times in that sentence! Pull yourself together!_

Another auror coughed again behind her, which irritated her further. But she went on. "You've, no doubt, heard something about Medusa Judasine Zabini, by now…"

"Yes," muttered Harry.

"What do you know?" asked McGonagal.

"I know that she was the worst of the Death Eaters. Voldemort trusts her beyond a doubt. She's out of prison. She probably knew my parents, was there when they were killed and is probably going to be coming after me to finish the job her master couldn't, now that she's out of jail…" he whispered, not evening flinching.

There was a deathly silence in the office. Minerva took a moment she seriously believed she was entitled to, to process the fact that she was about to force this…_damaged_ young man….to do something he would loathe.

"Mr. Potter, that was a very correct, very accurate summation of something that has been troubling me and the Ministry ever since the news of Zabini's escape broke out," she said.

"The Ministry?" snorted Ron Weasley. "Since when does the ministry care?"

"Since now, Ron," said Kingsley stepping forward. "And Arthur would be disappointed to hear you speak that way about the Ministry…"

"No, he really wouldn't." snapped Ron, with some contempt, making Hermione very proud of him, but Shacklebolt went on, regardless.

"Harry, despite anything that might have happened between you and the Ministry previously, Minister Scrimgeour wishes to make it painstakingly clear that our number one priority right now is your protection…"

"I don't believe you." snapped Harry.

"Would it help if I explained that we're not doing this for you?" Kingsley snapped back. "As far as we're concerned, Voldemort even managed to get Dumbledore in the end. Everyone the Ministry had hope in opposing him has gone down…except _you._ You're our last hope, as far as we're concerned, Harry. We're protecting you for _our_ own good as well as well as yours. Until we can find a way to utilise you to your fullest potential."

" 'Utilise' me to my fullest potential…" Harry couldn't even muster the engery to sound too disgusted.

"Well, we don't want you to die either. You've come too long a way to simply get assassinated by one of Lord Voldemort's minions now," Shacklebolt softened his tone.

"What are you suggesting?" asked Hermione, voice shivering.

Harry turned around in the seat and gave her a betrayed look.

"Please, Harry, they have a good point." Her brown eyes were tearful as she said it.

He sighed and turned back to stare at his hands again.

"A secret location and…a secret keeper…" Kingsley winced.

"**_WHAT?!_**" screamed Ron and Hermione in unison. Harry simply sat there, open-mouthed, staring at Kingsley as if the Auror had suggested beating Voldemort to death with a cherry.

"A secret keeper." he stated numbly. "A _secret keeper_. Are you fucking serious?"

"Language, Potter," Minerva growled.

Harry ignored her. "Kingsley, let me tell you a little story you might not know about a man named Sirius Black and a rat named Peter Pettigrew and the nice young couple called the Potters who also decided to have a secret keeper…"

"Don't be patronizing!" cried Shacklebolt as the other Aurors began to shift uncomfortably from one foot to the other and look sheepish.

"You want me to have a secret keeper? I mean, let's pretend for a moment that Voldemort has no idea that my two best friends are Ron and Hermione, despite the fact that he's tried to get to me _through _them several times; what's to stop him grabbing one of them?"

"Potter," interjected Minerva, suddenly. Really, when had he become such a smartass?! _Good, let him be a smartass. Smartasses are hard to kill…_ "I've considered all this and I have a plan…"

"Professor…" began Harry.

"I have a plan, Potter!" she snapped.

"Well, alright, then, let's pretend you've thought of everything I've just said! _Where?! Where would I go_?" he yelled, leaping to his feet.

"POTTER!" roared Minerva. Then, calming down, she said, "Have a biscuit, Potter."

"…what?"

"Shut up, have a biscuit, and listen…"

………………………………...

While the weather in Greece was ominously balmy , thunder rumbled openly in England. Hermione stared out of the window, lost in thought, looking at her own reflection in the darkness, through the running streams of rain on glass.

"Think they're almost done?"

Hermione jumped, her train of thought interrupted. Then seeing it was Ginny, she gave the other girl a small smile and considered . "Probably. "

"So who is it?"

Hermione frowned. "What?"

"Who's the Secret Keeper? You? Or Ron…"

"Don't be ridiculous, Ginny," snapped Hermione.

Ginny blinked and backed away. "I….I'm sorry….that was stupid, wasn't it?" She turned to go.

"Ginny, wait!" Hermione cried. "Come sit with me. I…I need to talk to you…"

"I've changed my mind, actually." said Ginny, her face contorting with such an expression of abject misery that for a moment, Hermione felt ill on her behalf. "I'd rather not talk about any of it…"

"Oh." murmured Hermione.

A dead silence hung in the air between them.

"You look terrified." whispered Ginny suddenly.

Hermione's laugh was unnervingly desperate. "I am."

Ginny nodded to herself, thinking things through. "You're in a position of danger now, aren't you? Whether it's _you_ or Ron who's the real Secret Keeper. Kind of like Sirius. He wasn't the Potters' Secret Keeper, but because people suspected he might be, his entire life got…well…screwed over, I guess…" She paused, taking a good long look at the speechless Hermione. "Infact, that's _why_ you're terrified isn't it? It's not you….the Secret Keeper's Ron…."

"Ginny, _please_…" Hermione breathed, looking like she was going to topple over in a dead faint. "You're not helping."

"Sorry, Hermione," Ginny came and sat next to her. "I just… Maybe…if Harry and I were still together….I'd share the burden too. People would think it was me, because I'd be the girlfriend."

"Trust me. You don't _want this_ kind of attention."

"I'm not scared, Hermione," said Ginny so softly the other girl hardly heard her. "I'm not scared at all. I wish you'd let me help."

"Oh, Ginny!" moaned her friend. "Ginny, it would _end_ Harry if you got involved. He couldn't bare it. Ron and I doing this is putting him at his wit's end as it is…"

"But I _am_ involved!" hissed Ginny savagely, leaping to her feet, and rounding on Hermione. "I've been involved for years! The moment Lucius Malfoy put that _damned_ diary in my…" She stopped, took a deep breath and regained her composure. "Tom Riddle and I have our own very special relationship, Hermione. At least…we _had_…I don't care if Harry doesn't want me around anymore…"

"Ginny, he _loves_ you!" pleaded Hermione, eyes brimming hopelessly. "Harry _loves_ you…"

"Doesn't matter. This isn't about him." said Ginny. "He's cutting me out and he doesn't have the right to. I deserve a share of this…of your work…"

"It's not my bloody work, Virginia! If I could quit this today and go back to being a muggle high school teenager believe me I would!"

"Then why don't you! Maybe Harry' ll need me then!"

"I thought this wasn't about Harry!"

Silence.

"Why don't you leave?" asked Ginny again, but this time it wasn't a spiteful dig; it was out of curiosity.

"Because it wouldn't help to. I'm Hermione Granger, Harry Potter's best friend and no matter where I go, even if I'm amongst muggles, wizards will always recognize me. Trying to hide from Voldemort would be a waste of time. And because…"

"Because of Ron."

Hermione sighed, defeated. "Yes, Ginny. Because of Ron. I can't leave Ron in this alone. He's a good friend to Harry, Lord love him, but he can be so useless…"

Ginny's lips drew back from her teeth sharply as she strode forward with enough force to create wind currents around her. Hermione almost shrank back in fear, before the redhead went down on her knees in front of her and grabbed her hand.

"Then why…_why…WHY_ is it so hard for you to understand that I _have_ to help Harry! Hermione! You have to let me in! You have to let me help Harry!"

"Why m-me?" whimpered Hermione. "Why are you asking me? Ask Ron! Ask Harry, damn it, _he_ dumped you!"

"You're a girl. You understand. You understand how I feel…"

"I….I…oh…" Hermione had no idea what to say to this.

"Please, Hermione. _Pleeeeeaase…."_

"Ginny, you don't want to be part of this…"

"Yes I do."

"But…what do you expect me to do?"

"Talk to the boys. They listen to you."

"Ron would _never_ allow it. Harry knows how strong you are and how much this is hurting you, _he _might come around. But Ron…Ron would rather die then see you involved in anything we do. And if Ron won't have it, Harry won't have it either."

"Then…then let me help you out secretly. In the library or …something…"

Hermione bit at her lip, frantically trying to find a mote of cowardice, a spec of second-guessing in the other girl's face, but her lip bled and still she found nothing but unwavering determinacy.

And being Hermione Granger, she also began to fear that if she didn't let Ginny in on everything…or somethings, at least… Ginny would _find a way_ to get involved all on her own. At least, if Ginny could trust her, then Hermione could keep an eye on her and make sure the girl didn't do anything rash.

Now…how to tell Harry and Ron…or…more accurately…_whether_ to tell Harry and Ron.

"Alright," murmured Hermione. "Alright, Ginny."

Ginny burst into tears and leapt up, enveloping Hermione in a bear hug that would've rivalled one of Hagrid's. "Oh thank you, Hermione…" she blubbered. "Thank you…"

"Hush, Gin, it's alright." Hermione rubbed her back soothingly, wondering just how long it had been since Ginny had let herself have a good cry. She'd seemed so calm when Harry had split up with her, last spring. She'd even known it was coming. _Poor thing_…

The door to the room suddenly imploded inwards with a resounding crash. Both Hermione and Ginny sprang apart and backwards, shrieking. Incidently it turned out to be Ron Weasley, alternately flushed and pale with emotion and exertion.

"RON?!" Hermione got to her feet, realising, as she put her hand to the floor for support, that she'd reflexively pulled her wand out of her robes. "Ron! What happened? Was it the Secret Ceremony?"

"Where's Harry?" breathe Ginny.

Out of the corner of her eye, Hermione was mildly surprised to see that the redhead had her wand out too. _Maybe it wasn't such a bad thing to have Ginny as back up… After all, the Weasley's youngest hope WAS known for her nasty Charm casting ability…maybe a bit of Malfoy blood, there…_

"Oh thank God you 're okay." Ron virtually melted against the doorframe, gasping in relief.

"What's going on?" demanded Hermione firmly. The hairs on the back of her neck were standing on end and a huge, abyss seemed to have opened somewhere in her gut region. _Death Eaters? More Death Eaters?_

Ron stared at her for a moment. He barely seemed to see his sister, now that he was sure they were both alive and well. He seemed listless, crushed, and that more than anything frightened Hermione. "Come see." he murmured.

………………………………...

It took Hermione all of three seconds to realise that Ron was leading them to the boys' room. There was a flurry of panicked activity in the common room, though, people stopped to stare when the three of them appeared out of the girls' wing and walked to the boys'. There was a look of fear, of foreboding on a lot of people's faces. Hermione could hear murmurs of, "Get McGonagal….go get McGonagal…"

"Ron," said Hermione in a small voice, as they climbed the stairs to their room. "Ron, is Harry alright?"

Dean and Seamus had been running down the stairs towards them, but stopped and stood aside, looking anywhere else but at her and Ginny's faces. The boys smelt of smoke and were covered in black soot…

Then, they were at the door before Ron could answer her.

Or what was left of the door.

It had been blown completely off its hinges and shattered into matchstick fragments all over the room. There was a nasty green tinge to the lighting to the room, but Hermione couldn't tell where it was coming from till she actually stepped into it.

The fire in the grate was a nasty neon green, flames burning in the shape of a leering skull, serpent winding repeatedly out of its gaping maw.

"Oh my God…" croaked Ginny.

Harry was sitting on the charred remains of his blasted bed, looking dejectedly at the floor. His gigantic clothes' chest had been heaved across the room, his things vandalised and strewn all over the room, sticking to the ceiling, hanging off the other four poster beds, torn scratched and wasted.

The album with his parents' pictures lay soaking in something foul. The letters from Sirius were in tiny little bits. A myriad of sweaters with giant letter 'H's on the front, handmade lovingly by Molly Weasley had been very deliberately unwound magically.

"Harry…" wavered a voice from behind them. They turned. It was Neville, face lined with soot and tears. "Harry…" he said again, but could say nothing more.

Harry took a deep, deep breath. "Guess, what they took." he whispered.

"Th-they t-took something?" stuttered Hermione through her sobbing.

"Of course they did," replied Harry numbly. "_They_ never waste malice…"

"What…what…they take?" Hermione could hardly form words; her mouth seemed to want to shape itself into a formless howl.

"The locket. The fake Horcrux."

This time, Hermione did wail.

"Now, they know that we don't have a Horcrux. Now, they know we're not dangerous…" Harry went on voice almost inaudible.

Ginny took a sleepwalker's single step forward, but didn't seem to find the strength to go on. A soiled picture of Lily Potter floated in a steaming pool of goo at her toe, like a ward against love's entrance.

"I've stayed too long." murmured the Boy-Who-Lived. "I'm going to have to leave sooner than I thought."

………………………………...

Medusa looked in the mirror.

It was amazing what a little food and sunlight could do in two weeks. She seemed to come back to life more and more everyday, like a skeleton regaining its muscle, then its skin, then it's very life.

She still looked hideously gaunt. She doubted she would ever _not_ look malnourished again; but it didn't look like you could cut cloth on her nose, chin and cheekbones anymore, and the dead, lack of energy once clearly visible in her gaze had been replaced by something else…a hunger and vitality that had nothing to do with food. That and the scar still marking a pathway for tears down her right cheek were gifts, souvenirs, reminders of a time that had swallowed her whole and spat her out.

_Tom Riddle._

She could write volumes on him, but was lucky enough to have never been asked to. _Mr. Tom Marvolo Riddle_.

People had, over the decades, developed many a theory over why Riddle turned into the all-devouring, black hole he'd become. '_Oh he was traumatised as a child'_ and _'Oh, it's genetic; his grandfather was quite mad, you know…and if his uncle hadn't been born 'simple', he'd have been mad too…'._

Crock-shit, the whole load of it. A sack full of theories made by people who'd never even met him…

Medusa knew what fuelled Tom. She always had, she now realised, just never wanted it to be so simple.

As a young pureblood, Medusa had always wanted to believe the nobler reasoning behind the death and destruction she'd dealt out in his name.

But all this, the wasted lives , the fear, the coming end…all this wasn't for any noble cause, she now admitted.

This war was started because his muggle father had rejected Tom.

Rejected by a muggle.

A muggle's rejection had fueled the longest, largest bleeding of Pure Blood ever to have been seen by the wizarding community. And the tragedy was that most of the blood-letting had been done by the Pure Bloods themselves.

Medusa smiled at herself in the mirror. It wasn't a happy smile; it was an _amused_ one, and if anyone out of her old crowd had seen it they would have shuddered.

Only the highly ironic _ever_ amused Medusa. Sirius had always accused her of having the humour of an executioner, and when Bellatrix Lestrange stared at _you_ for finding something hilarious when you shouldn't, you could start to think that maybe….just maybe….what people said about you was true.

That you weren't 'all there'…

That you revelled in the site of blood…

That you were Death's Virgin…

Death's Mary…

Death's womb…

Once upon a time, such talk had hurt Medusa, had cut her to the bone. Hogwarts had _not_ been as much of a haven for her or her sister, as it had been for others.

Now? Well, she knew herself better now, didn't she? And if you know yourself well, if you know what you are and what you're capable of, it really doesn't matter what people used to say, does it?

Medusa now accepted that she really probably _wasn't _'all there'. How could you have lived the life she had and be completely sane? And who said insane was so bad? Her mother had definitely liked it…

And, _no, _she _didn't_ revel in the site of blood. She certainly saw a lot of it, but that didn't mean she revelled in it. It didn't repulse her, that's for sure. Blood was just an inconvenient result of her interaction with people, sometimes.

At least it was a pretty colour…till it dried.

And being somehow a lover of death? That was the greatest lie of them all. Medusa, of all people knew that she had no power over death and desired none. Rudolphus and Bellatrix _loved _death ; it's why they'd made it linger, or held it back, thinking to control the uncontrollable. McNair loved death, with his heavy axe and his gig beheading for the ministry. Dolohov, Mulciber, they all developed a taste for death eventually.

Thinking the name 'Fenrir Greyback' and the words 'Taste for death' in the same sentence simply made her _amused_ again.

Medusa was _indifferent _to death. Some people thought that was worse, and they were entitled to their opinion, but she knew better than to assume she had any control over The Reaper. Death came to people whether they willed it or not. Just because she'd dealt it out a few times hardly meant that she had a taste for it. It wasn't a food, after all, or a drink, or an action. It was a thing to be given or received and when you gave it, something else acted through you. You could _Aveda Kedavra_ or _Crucius_ someone all you liked, but they would not die unless they were meant to.

The Longbottoms had proved it.

Harry Potter was the ultimate proof.

And even _Tom Riddle_.

But Medusa knew, _everyone_ died in the end.

What mattered was when….and how.

………………………………...

Morgana watched her sister tug the last laces with practiced force, so that the two sides of her high, black collar came together flawlessly, meeting beneath her chin to cup her jaw like lover's hands. It was an austere garment, with a tight waist, restrictive chest and heavy skirts, almost like a priest's robe, but dotted down the front with two lines of silver buttons and , if one looked close enough, swirling with sheened embroidery that only appeared in moving light.

Morgana watched the severe clothing, juxtaposed by the long curling hair, now untangled, cleaned and rid of its split ends, pouring down her sister's back. This Medusa looked so different than the pink lipped child Morgana had been forced to abandon so long ago. That Medusa had had a round cheeked face, and wide, vulnerable eyes…Not anymore.

Not anymore.

"Well? What do you think?" asked Medusa turning to face Morgana, hands brushing down her front.

"You look like Snape," sulked the elder woman.

"Huh." Medusa smiled her lopsided smile and suddenly, Morgana could see her again; that young girl from so long ago.

Still smiling, Medusa looked down at the long , light box her sister had placed on the boudoire, wraped in black satin ribbon.

"How did you…"

"Lucius isn't the only pureblood with connections at Azkaban. Besides, no one ever believed you'd make it out of there, so instead of destroying it, they sold it to an anonymous bidder…" sighed Morgana. "Paid a lot of money for it. A lot of money I couldn't exactly part with, at the time. I was between husbands…"

"Sorry…" Medusa 's small hand reached forward and pulled the ribbon apart. The top fell off the box, revealing a long, pencil-thin, black wand. Medusa's smile became a pained smirk. "Yew…and cobra venom…remember?"

"How could I forget. Mine is cherry wood and cobra venom. Mr. Olivander, God rest his soul, thought it increadably quaint that I was taking you wand shopping in your first year. He told me I was a good sister for doing so. He wasn't surprised we had turned out with the same wand-centre."

"Pity he never told me that Tom Riddle's wand was made out of Yew too. I might have been warned…"

Morgana shook her head. "No one could have warned us." She sighed. "Your wand… was my last piece of you I could keep, as far as I was concerned, back then. I'm ridiculously rich, now, but…but I don't want to have to buy it back again, Medusa…"

"Morgan…"

"Dusa…please don't go. Please don't start this again."

"I have to."

Silence.

They embraced ceremonially, then hung on desperately.

"Medusa…" breathed Morgana. "Come back to me. Please come back to me."

Medusa thought hard about her reply. Then, she said, "I can't promise you that. But I can promise you that Blaise will."

Then, pulling away from her sister, Medusa swiftly left a kiss in the corner of Morgana's mouth and headed towards the fireplace. Floo fire flickered in the grate. Taking a deep breath as she stepped into the flame, Medusa named her destination .

"Malfoy Manor."


	4. Detective Work

**Chapter 3. Detective Work**

Something ugly this way comes  
Through my fingers sliding inside  
All these blessings all these burns  
I'm godless underneath your cover  
Search for pleasure search for pain  
In this world now I am undying  
I unfurl my flag my nation helpless

Black black heart why would you offer more  
Why would you make it easier on me to satisfy  
I'm on fire I'm rotting to the core  
I'm eating all your kings and queens  
All your sex and your diamonds

As I begin to lose my grip  
On these realities your sending  
Taste your mind and taste your sex  
I'm naked underneath your cover  
Covers lie and we will blend and borrow  
With the coming sign  
The tide will take the sea will rise and time will rape

Black black heart why would you offer more  
Why would you make it easier on me to satisfy  
I'm on fire I'm rotting to the core  
I'm eating all your kings and queens  
All your sex and your diamonds

Black black heart why would you offer more  
Why would you make it easier on me to satisfy  
I'm on fire I'm rotting to the core  
I'm eating all your kings and queens  
All your sex and your diamonds  
All your sex and your diamonds  
All your sex and your diamonds  
All your sex and your diamonds  
All your sex and your diamonds

**"Black, Black Heart"**

**David Usher**

………………………………...

Snatcher had been a Malfoy House Elf for over a hundred and fifty years, and in all the years and generations he'd lived in this house, he had never ever seen it so dark, so empty, so abandoned, or so angry.

The house itself was _livid_. Livid that it's Master Lucius had been forced to flee, furious that its Mistress Narcissa had been bound and dragged out of it against her will, and wrathfully violated because its inner hallways, sanctums and corridors had been crawling with prying, poking Traitors and Mudbloods.

Vermin.

Muggle-lovers.

Diluters of the Blood.

But mostly, the house was grieving. Grieving because _The Child_…Draco…had gone to school one year, then never returned.

Narcissa Malfoy had wailed for nights on end, in hollow, heart-rending, howls that echoed down the halls, when the news had reached her of Draco's involvement in Dumbledore's death. He was now a fugitive from both Aurors and Death Eaters a like.

Just like his father.

No…_not_ like his father, because Lucius could walk through fire and find a way to come out smelling like a rose. When Lucius had angered the Dark Lord, the Malfoys had worried, but knew they could wait it out. The house had been holding it breath, but it had been confident that order would somehow be restored one day.

But when _Draco_ went missing….

Snatcher the house elf had always had his theories about Malfoy Manor. It was said, and indeed Master Lucius had kept documents that seemed to prove the notion, that though the current version of the manor resembled nothing short of a full blown Gothic cathedral, the first version had been built as a Viking Hall, set up by the original progenitor of the Malfoy bloodline, the Warrior Wizard Grymwulf, a contemporary of Merlin's who'd never received as much acclaim for his bravery because he was Saxon, a pale-haired invader, not a cave-dwelling celt. An irony, considering that the muggle King Arthur had indeed been Saxon himself. Well, Master Lucius always said that you couldn't expect anything more from muggles or, for that matter, anyone named 'Arthur'.

It always seemed that the Malfoys were on the wrong side of some war.

For close to a millennium now, the Manor had witnessed its pale haired owners walk its insides, live, love, laugh, decorate, fortify, then rebuild. So much magic had been involved in its assembly, by now, that the House had developed a sentient personality…and an acute protective love of all things Malfoy.

It had survived giant rebellions, centaur attacks and dragon races. Generations of its paranoid tenants had installed a garden of giant, man-eating Venus Flytraps, a lake of zombie Great White sharks, an outer wall topped with razor sharp spikes worthy of a Caesarean fortress and a specially spliced breed of Devil's Snare that tended to sporadically migrate all over the property. Fires were no threat, flooding was encouraged and woe betided those who tried to knock it down. It had survived World Wars, Wizard Wars and always at its heart, it had stood like a fortress, shielding the bloodline from those outside its walls.

But now the house held nothing.

Nothing.

Lucius had fled and could not come back. Narcissa had been taken from within it and Draco…Draco….

Lightening cracked the sky and thunder rattled the earth, so loud and close it hurt Scratcher's big, floppy ears. He whimpered and cowered, a growing sense of foreboding eating away at his hard-won resolve.

None of the other house elves dared emerge from the kitchen anymore. They were terrified. The house had 'eaten' a couple of them within the first week of empty misery, stashing their little petrified bodies in broom closets or laundry chutes, places that the other house elves would be _sure _to find them.

But Scratcher….Scratcher and the house were old acquaintances….or at least Scratcher hoped the House considered him an old acquaintance. At least they were both grieving….Scratcher missed the Malfoys too, which is why he'd braved his way up to the main levels on an almost nightly basis.

The Manor knew he was loyal. Unlike that sorry excuse for a house elf, Dobbie, who came through a few years ago. The house had hated _him. _It was constantly shutting things on his ears and fingers. It was a good thing that traitor had left long before this, or the Manor would've found a way to 'eat' him for sure. Push him into an oven or over a banister, or something…

Scratcher's philosophising on Dobbie's treachery ended abruptly when a long shriek of rage and agony whistled its way down the very corridor he was in, slamming paintings against the walls, overturning furniture and ripping the carpets out of the floors as it went. This wanton destruction of itself had started the moment the House Elves had stopped emerging from their warm, well-lit kitchen. On some ephemeral sublevel, Scratcher felt a little sorry for the house. It felt like it looked. Desolate.

* * *

On this particular night, Scratcher had emerged in the upper levels to try and find a tiny picture of the Young Master that he could steal while the house was being particularly docile. He had tried taking a portrait of the boy off one of the libraries' walls, once, but the house had screamed and screamed and screamed, and then the walls in the room had began to come closer to each other, narrowing the room down, crushing the desk and bookshelves like nutshells, raining books down on poor Scratcher until he was almost crushed. But, it had stopped when he had become dangerously sandwiched flat between walls that normally stood thirty feet apart.

It had been a warning Scratcher had not forgotten, but he badly, badly wanted a picture of Master Draco and he wondered if maybe the Manor wouldn't begrudge him a tiny, bad one.

He was having his doubts, now. The house was active, tonight. Restless. Bored.

He had emerged just across from one of the little sitting rooms built along the long, exhausting hallways with large, balcony windows. There was a fireplace there that had been dead for many years (the Malfoys had not had parties in a while, thanks to the shaky situation they held in the public eye and most of their friends being in Azkaban). This corridor should have been the least frightening part of the house because the bay windows allowed the corridor to be well lit, even on the dimmest of nights, but the fact that the hallway was so long you couldn't see to either of its ends was more than a little unnerving.

Scratcher huddled in his little shadowed corner and seriously considered aborting his mission.

Then….suddenly…..something a hundred times more terrifying and riveting than anything the house could ever perform happened.

The dead, dark fireplace suddenly began to smoke. Then a lick of tiny, green flame curled upwards bravely, like a sprout breaking earth. Then more green flame blossomed into a huge burning bonfire. It crackled and roared and snapped but provided no heat.

_Floo Fire_.

Scratcher could barely make sense of what was happening it was so impossible.

_Floo Fire._

Who DARED enter Malfoy Manor now? Who was coming? Why? Why would anyone come here?

A tall, black shape stepped out of the fire with as much soft, wafting, calm control as a Dementor. The fire instantly went out in a puff of dust and old, cold soot.

Scratcher whimpered and recoiled in on himself. He could not tell whether the House was frozen in anticipation or outrage, but nothing moved, not even the constantly blowing, bouncing papers that danced around the house of their own accord.

The visitor did nothing but stand in the darkness for a long, long time. Then, the faceless silhouette reached into itself and pulled out something long and thin; a wand. Scratcher heard the person take a deep breath and whisper, "_Lumos_."

A tiny white light appeared on the end of the wand, lighting up the stranger's face.

Scratcher's hands muffled his own scream. The house moaned like a mortally wounded beast, a soft wind blowing down the corridor, scattering papers, love letters, pictures of former, heartrendingly happy times.

_She was back. Against all hope. Against all sense. The Young Mistress was back…_

The tall, rake-thin woman looked up at the ceiling, her face in shadow. "Do you know who I am?"

In a distant part of the house, glass shattered, as if the implication that this house could _ever_ forget Mistress Medusa was ludicrous.

In the light of her wand, the woman smiled a lopsided smile that revealed the white gleam of a canine. Scratcher shuddered; he knew the grin well.

"God, I've missed you…" whispered Medusa, her voice rough with victory. "I can't believe I'm here again…"

She put out a hand and gripped the filigree on the corner of one of the walls. If a house could shudder with pleasure, Scratcher believed Malfoy Manor would have.

The wall in front of Medusa's face began to gloop and bubble like melting rubber. Medusa frowned and withdrew her hand quickly as something began to emerge out of the disrupted surface.

"Oh…" she breathed. "Since when have you been _this_ active…."

It was a picture frame, emerging out of the very wall as if it were rising through water. Scratcher knew the portrait well. It hung in the Rose Themed Dining Room, usually. The house must have wanted it to arrive exceedingly quickly to have pulled a stunt like that…

Medusa leaned in and peered through the writhing strings of liquefied wall at the portrait being produced. She saw…then she laughed. Her laugh echoed like tinkling crystal, all the way around the house, echoed, Scratcher was sure, by Malfoy Manor itself.

The portrait was of Master Lucius at age thirteen, sitting in his father's great big ornamental throne, slouched over backwards, with a leg draped over one of the arms, in a most insolent manner, jaw resting on his left hand as if nothing could bore him more than being painted, his chin-length hair loose and messy from quidditch. Sitting on his knee, was a Medusa at age nine, swinging her legs precociously, her face just as insolent in that innocent way only rude little girls could perfect.

"Oh Lucius," whispered this far older version of the girl in the picture. "Lucius…how am I going to find you?"

A sudden loud crash made Medusa wheel around, wand at the ready. It was one of the bay windows opening and closing convulsively. Then another pair of windows opened and closed violently. Then another. Then four at the same time. Then six then more until the entire corridor began to ring with opening and closing, crashing windows, flapping like agitated wings.

Medusa stood bewildered and amazed at this incredible show of force from the house. She turned around herself, several times, watching in disbelief, a look of awe on her hard face. "You know where he is?" she cried over the ruckus.

All the windows slammed shut in unison, a resounding '_No…' ._

"So what…what are you trying to tell me?" asked Medusa hesitantly.

Again the windows began to flap open and shut at a horrendous pace, as if the House would exploded if it couldn't tell her.

Medusa laughed and raised up her arms in a plea for silence and the windows all slammed shut in unison again. One of them must have broken, because a freezing wind was blowing in from somewhere. The light on the end of her wand had extinguished itself, even though Scratcher hadn't herd her cast a '_Nox_' charm.

He held his breath as the house held its breath. The world teetered on the brink of something in that complete and utter darkness. Scratcher wondered if anyone else in the world was up and worried, this late, and if not, if any sleepers were having nightmares of witches or an ancient gothic priestesses from old muggle fables…

"Pentoculum." she murmured in the dark, her dark silhouette dragging her wand through the air till she'd traced an inverted five point star around her feet in dim glowing green. The moment she'd finished, the moment the two final ends of the drawing had touched each other, sealing the deal, the inverted pentacle began to hum in rhythmical vibration. And she stood in the empty centre, black skirts twirling around her black boots, like some sort of executioner priest.

Looking up and into the darkness of the hallway, she then whispered, "Historium Revelatus."

The air in the house began buzzing with minor lightening balls and blue sparks. The green glowing pentacle hummed louder and shone brighter and brighter until the entire hallway was awash with glare. Then things began to rise off the floors.

Cabinets, filled with tonnes of ancient antiques, that were virtually immovable, papers, chairs and tables, curtains began to flutter upwards. Scratcher was terrified, though he showed no signs of lift-off anytime soon. Papers smacked into the ceiling as if they'd been thrown up there, then glued.

And then _she began_ to rise.

Her long dark hair whipped about her face in the storm she'd conjured, as very, very slowly her feet left the floor, hanging limp and relaxed as if she were some sort of rag doll. Hovering about three feet off the ground, a whirlwind of candles and towels and old books spinning around her like pagans around a bonfire, Miss Zabini finally whispered, "Show me."

A loud crash that sounded very much like thunder shook through the corridor as a thin line of light, looking like a crack in the floor, shot out of the pentacle's right point and began to speed down the hallway towards the grand East Wing, like a run in some stockings.

Immediately, the hovering woman shot after it, hovering as if some giant hand that had her by the waist was saving her the need to walk. But far from looking comical or just plain strange, Scratcher found it macabre, how powerful she was, to the extent where she could split open the house's secrets the way she was about to do.

He did not follow her. He had not seen her after her final year at school but had heard the elves downstairs talk of Miss Medusa and how she had changed after Hogwarts.

Obviously, they had not known how much.

Medusa flew after the trail the house was blazing for her in its own floor. Of course, this would leave a permanent smoking black crack in the ancient oak floors, but Medusa doubted Lucius would begrudge her her need for instant results.

Her hair streamed behind her as she flew faster and faster , up the great stairs, down the corridor to the bedrooms, past the one the part of the house that had once been her own, past little baby Draco's quarters (well, not much of a baby now, she was sure) and finally into the most private, collected part of the house, the King and Queen suite, that Lucius and Narcissa had never quite moved out of after their honeymoon.

The doors had been bolted shut, with Ministry spells warding off anyone who thought to break in, yellow 'Caution' tape defiling the ancient engravings like spider webs on the Mona Lisa.

"Fragmento." demanded Medusa and the crack in the floor began running up the centre of the door, eating its way through Ministry spells, which glowed purple and orange and pink weakly before all disappearing and dying beneath the power of her casting. In a moment, the doors had exploded open inwards, showering the hallway with dust, pieces of door and wall debris.

Silence.

Medusa hovered where she was, savouring the moment like a sadistic lover holding back at climax. The house moaned.

She hovered into the room.

And, in its turn, like a lover over-spilling, the house let her see and let her have it all. All the secrets. All the pain.

Medusa watched. Slowly, a faint glowing green form began to waver and materialise sitting at the great ornamental mirror and makeup table to the left of the room. The ghostly shape sat and stared at its own reflection in the mirror, silent tears, dark with black mascara, rolling down a face that had once made the boys at Hogwarts ache with its beauty.

" Oh, Cissa." Medusa heard the rawness in her own voice and felt justified. "Oh, my poor…sweet…"

The ghost of Narcissa, or rather, the imprint of her form left there like a recording of her actions in the House's memory, silently and dejectedly picked up a ghostly brush and automatically began to brush the long main of golden hair cascading around her nape and down her front, cushioning the side of her face like an expensive fleece. The sorrow and fear and emptiness in those dark eyes, the helplessness in a woman who for all intents and purposes Medusa had always thought of as a Princess, left the watching witch with the feeling that nothing in her world had ever been sacred or safe.

Then, the ghost of Narcissa suddenly jumped and dropped the brush from her hand, spinning around wild eyed to look right at Medusa.

Except she wasn't looking at Medusa.

Out of the corner of her eye, Medusa saw another green ghostly form walk in from the doorway that now stood directly behind her.

Pin-straight rivers of liquid, black and shiny as obsidian or petroleum, the night to Narcissa's day, the tar to Narcissa's feather.

Bellatrix.

Medusa frowned slightly to see Narcissa begin to scream in fear as her sister advanced. _What was this? A visit from Bellatrix was a dubious pleasure for sure, but why was Narcissa terrified of her own sister? What was happening here? _

Bellatrix advanced, contemptuous as a queen, and said something. Medusa tried to lip read and caught, "……Draco…..dead…." and "Trust me…."

And there was no doubt what Narcissa was howling as she got to her feet. _Noooooo! Noooooooo! Bella! Pleeeeeease! _

From the corner of her eye, again from the doorway, Medusa saw three men, clothed in white robes, with white surgical masks on their faces advance, with what was unmistakably a straight jacket. They had hauled in a an equally white and non-committal stretcher and some form of leather restraint with buckles on it.

Medusa's breath hitched in her chest as she watched in acute agony and mortified pity as Narcissa, beautiful, delicate Cissa, made a desperate grab for her hair shears and backed into a corner, looking desperately from the advancing masked men to her own sister.

Bella was mouthing something else silently now, with a gleam in her eye that looked anything but loving. _For your own good…_ she was saying, right before she lunged forward, with those cobra-like reflexes that only a murderess like Bella could hone and wrapped her long, pale fingers around her sister's equally pale wrists twisting until Narcissa not only dropped the scissors, but tumbled to her knees, sobbing.

The men now felt free to attack. They had Narcissa in the straight jacket in a blur of movement that Medusa did not even have time to interpret. Then they felt free to wrap the leather restraints around her legs so that she was completely and utterly trussed up, like a sacrifice. Narcissa, by this time had gone into complete frenzy, bucking and writhing, golden hair flying everywhere as the attempts to restrain her resulted in handfuls being pulled out and left to float to the floor, like the feathers of a murdered angel.

As two of the men lifted her up in the stretcher and took her out of the room, the third came and stood next to Bella, who had coldly watched the proceedings through eyes narrowed at a job well done. He mumbled something beneath his mask that Medusa could not even attempt to guess at through her own tears.

As they left the room, Medusa could see that Narcissa was still screaming for Bella even as she passed out of the protection of her and Lucius' love nest.

But, now… Medusa only had eyes for what Bellatrix Lestrange might say to this man. Through heartbreak, through betrayal, Medusa's wrath still burnt deeper than her grief and it finally paid off when she saw Bellatrix's blood red lips form the words: "…..St. Mungo's Mental Ward…"

* * *

Doctor Zealott McMadden had always been a little proud of his reputation as a madman in charge of madmen. That the papers and media in general thought of him so was limitlessly flattering, though he tended to think of himself as a connoisseur and collector of the mentally unstable.

But all flattery aside he was a genius at recognizing a broken mind, and people knew it. They knew it and paid him for it; he'd been the head of St. Mungo's Mental Ward for over twenty years, now, and none of the petitions for his removal had succeeded in doing anything other than provide much needed publicity for himself.

And because he recognized true madness when he saw it (it took a madman to know a madman, he always thought) he found himself agreeing whole-heartedly to whatever Bellatrix Lestrange might demand of him, though, even by _his_ interesting standards, throwing your own sister into the loony-bin was a tad…_low_.

But he didn't like saying no to Bellatrix Lestrange. He knew of her sordid past as much as anyone else did; she was legendary, wasn't she? But more than that, it was her eyes….her black, remorseless, amused eyes that had…well…admittedly terrified him into plotting the coupe (as he liked to think of it) on Malfoy Manor.

And besides all that, she had offered him something he couldn't refuse….a _Malfoy_ in his little showcase for the insane. And what a magnificent specimen Narcissa Malfoy was. The last time a Malfoy had been tossed into the Mental Ward had been two hundred years ago and , well, Bartolomeux Mars Malfoy had been just stark raving, speaking-to-God, frothing at the mouth, convulsing till he got lock-jaw crazy. Plus he'd started three wars and wiped out an entire species of Giant to boot.

Narcissa was a _nice_ specimen. She was the sit-on-her-bed, rocking-back-and-forth, crying-and-mumbling-to-herself, refusing-to-touch-any-food-until-she-was-tied-and-force-fed crazy. Which was Dr. McMadden's favourite type.

So not only had he gotten a beautiful butterfly in his glass case for being a good boy, he had gotten rid of Bellatrix, who, he had been sure, was only waiting for an excuse to do horrid and excruciating things to him if he stood in her way. After all, he was also in charge of two of her past victims, Mr. And Mrs. Longbottom, even nicer crazies than Narcissa, who still had some fight in her. He saw what Bellatrix had done to _them_. Dr. Zealott McMadden was many, many things…mad, amongst them…but he was _not_ stupid.

But then…..

Then the _other one_ had shown up.

At first he'd thought a Dementor had walked into his ward. Sure enough the woman was tall and rake thin underneath her black hood and cowl.

Then, possibly even nastier than thinking it was a Dementor, he'd thought it was Bellatrix LeStrange, back again and displeased with him.

No, it wasn't Bellatrix, but…this person….was perhaps just as terrifying.

This person….was another one of _them_…those…._mad people_ who you did not dare to inform of their own madness lest they take you apart limb from limb…_slowly_.

But….but she _did_ ask to see his beautiful Malfoy specimen…so…so he at least felt compelled to ask a _few_ questions! Especially that the nurse had skittered away the instant he'd arrived, taking this terrifying guest off her hands.

No, it was _not_ Bellatrix. There was a resemblance, for sure, but the dark hair bunching beneath the cloak's hood was spiralled and curling, the skin dark, the eyes….amber.

And the madness was different. There was no disconcerting lack of interest here, but a kind of taught hunger that one only found in rabid dogs.

"C-c-c-" he choked. "C-can I h-help… you?"

The woman stared at him from the shadows of her cowl, her eyes sizing him up in a swift sweep that found him more than wanting.

"I'm looking for Narcissa Malfoy."

"Yes, w-w-well…" Dr. McMadden stuttered, pushing back his spectacles and waggling his little black moustache uncomfortably. "The…the p-patient you speak of is….is under the _highest…_sec…security…" He trailed off.

Her eyes had shifted to his shiny bald pate, studying his skull with distaste. Then, her tiny, malicious pupils became smaller (if that was even possible), pin-prinks in pools of lava, and swept down to take in his diminutive size, before coming up to freeze him in place again, like a python bewitching a monkey…its next meal.

And though her expression remained void of anything as clear cut as hatred, he felt sure that the thoughts running through her head involved smashing his skull open against the tiles of his own hospital and smearing his brains out like cheap pâté.

He could barely breath….but out of fear for his life, he managed to squeeze out enough air to squeak. "_This way!"

* * *

_

Medusa had always hated the Mental Ward. It gave most people the willies, but she had more intimate memories of it than most people.

She could still remember the mandatory visitations to their mother her and Morgana had been dragged to when they were very, very young, until the Blacks and the Malfoys had adopted them, respectively.

Walking between the white beds, in the white ward, with the white clad staff and patients, it seemed like only yesterday that Morgana had bravely taken a firm grip on her five-year-old sister's mittened paw and led the way to bed number 32.

That version of Medusa had been tear stained and red faced with mewling in agonised fear over this. Morgana, at least, had remembered a time when their mother had not been quite so mad, but little Dusa had nothing but memories of their father dead in his own blood and their mother setting fire to the house.

Morgana had always tried to stop the visitations when they were in the Ministry's care, but the woman at the half-way house would jinx the eight year old and toss her in a cupboard for days to quell any rebellion. And without food, little Morgana had always caved, despite a heroic effort.

Besides, there had been another reason why Morgana had kept her mouth shut to stay out of the cupboard much of the time. It always seemed that after being released from her prison, she'd always find Medusa had somehow obtained some sort of mysterious, inexplicable superficial injury…like a bruised face…or a split lip…or even…once…a concussion.

The Ministry had declared it mandatory for them to visit with their last remaining parent, violent and demented as she had been. So the mudblood bitch at the half-way house had made sure they went. She'd been only too happy to teach a couple of pureblood brats what life was _really_ like in the 'Real World'.

Of course, the 'Real World' came back to bite her in the butt, when a few years later, during a particularly stormy summer night, when Lucius, Medusa and a couple of her other bored cousins had had nothing better to do but drain the contents of several liqueur cabinets, they'd found that very same halfway house again and were only too pleased to find the same mudblood bitch still running it.

It had been Medusa's idea to conjure the giant iron spike out of the ground and then tie her to it. Let the lightening finish her off, Medusa'd said at the time. _Bitch might not even die the first time around…_

Then, in a euphoric haze, she'd taken lamp oil to the orphanage and yelled, "Incendio! Incendio!" until flames licked up its walls into nothingness.

Lucius had laughed himself limp, the soot on his face only making him look roguish and debonair, as all five kids rolled in the wet grass and watched the blaze. "Oh, look!" he'd called drunkenly. "You take after your mummy after all, Medusa!"

* * *

Incidentally, Narcissa had _not_ been put in bed 32.

But that hardly made it bearable to see Cissy in such condition.

Her creamy complexion now had a sickly yellow pallor. Her hair, matted and tangled with sweat and tears as it was, had been hastily twisted into a long, loose braid, winding around her neck and down her back to her bottom, like noose rope. She sat curled up, her knees beneath her chin, arms circling them, rocking back and forth, agitated by surroundings that were _not_ her home, people that were _not_ her family, a place that had probably unhinged her more, rather that fix her. The bruises around her wrists and ankles where they'd restrained her were dark and exactly the shape of the straps of leather used, as terribly painful bruises always are.

They hadn't even mercifully used magic on her.

The beasts.

Medusa had to turn away. The thought of Lucius seeing his _beautiful_ wife, the mother of his child, treated like this, the golden haired Black sister he'd doggedly courted at school and presented with a ring in the darkness of her family home garden, the summer they'd graduated….

But Lucius was just as helpless, somewhere.

Lucius…was helpless. For the first time in his life.

And so he'd burrowed down into the dark depths of Azkaban's more forgotten crevices and he'd found _her_. He'd dug _her_ out.

Lucius, it seemed, always had some kind of card up his sleeve.

So…._not_ so helpless, after all.

Hiss laughed inside Medusa's head., but said nothing.

She turned around, the thought steeling her against heartbreak and approached the bed.

Distractedly, as if she'd been lost in some secret silent imaginings, Narcissa looked up at the Grim Reaper hovering over her.

"Narcissa."

The golden hair woman gasped, her eyes widening to three times their original size till all their whites stared out around the grey blue irises, like a skittish horse in a fire.

"_You…_" she breathed. "_You…What are you?!"_

Medusa misunderstood. Gently sitting herself on the edge of the bed, she murmured, "Don't you remember me?"

Narcissa laughed as tears began to slide down her face, scampering onto her knees and bringing up cold shaking hands to put at Medusa's hot, sharp face. "Are you here to kill me?" she asked through her happy weeping.

"No! Of course not!"

"You've come to die..."

"What?"

"You were _never_ supposed to see the sun again! Never! But now you've seen the sun…breathed the air…you walk amongst the living and _They_ will kill you…._They_ will kill you, little dog, like they killed my D-d-draco…" And here the incoherent, feverish speech melted into painful, coughing sobs. "…and my Lucius…and me…oh they've killed me…You should have stay! You should have _stayed!_"

"No!" Medusa leaned forward and enfolded Narcissa in her arms. "No one is going to kill anyone…"

" Oh yes _They _will! Oh yes _They_ will! _They _kill everyone! Everything! Even family…" Narcissa shook, burying her face in Medusa's shoulder.

"Who's _They_?" asked Medusa gently, though she knew perfectly well who.

Narcissa pulled away, looking her in the face, disbelieving. Then she let out a mad bark of a laugh that was completely unamused and vanished as suddenly as it had appeared.

"_They_ are _US_, little dog." said Narcissa. "_They_ are US. _They_ used to be YOU, too, but you aren't _Them_ anymore, are you?"

"No." replied Medusa grimly. "No I'm not. But they don't know that yet."

Narcissa suddenly looked fearful. She clutched at Medusa's wrist, surprising the other woman by how strong she was.

"Don't, little dog! Don't! They're very clever! Very clever! Cleverer than Lucius! And certainly cleverer than my little D-d-draco…" The sobbing came again.

_Oh, she's a mess_, sighed Jabber.

Hiss merely made a sound of condescending disgust. _How far the mighty had fallen. Pathetic._

"I'll be careful, Cissa," said Medusa.

"**Don't call me that!**" snarled Narcissa ferociously, teeth bare, eyes narrowed formidably. Medusa leaned back, eyebrows raised in alarm. "**That B-b-bitch called me that! That BITCH!"**

A small smile twisted Medusa's lips. "Bellatrix." she offered sweetly.

Narcissa merely spat like a cat on electrodes. "**BITCH! THAT BITCH! When I get my hands on her…I'm going to KILL me a Bella-bitch…"**

"If she's the bitch…then what makes me the Little Dog?"

"_Because you were always so loyal…"_ breath Narcissa leaning forward and holding Medusa's face in both her hands, as if catching dripping water that would vanish into the ground if dropped. "_So…so needlessly loyal…and They _**used**_you. They used you up, Little Dog, just like they used my D-d-draco….my poor sweet Draco…oh my little boy! My baby boy!"_

Narcissa's hands grabbed at her own hair and Medusa quickly pounced forward, sheilding the older woman in her arms before the agonised screaming could attract anymore attention than it already had from the wary, patrolling matrons and nurses.

Medusa looked around worriedly as Narcissa's muffled howls echoed from her lap. Medusa let her cry and cry until she stilled and was exhausted., finally revealing her face so that the side of her head now rest on the huge, dark, wet patch she'd created in Dusa's robes.

"They're going to kill my boy…"she murmured faintly, eyes glazed and swollen distantly.

Medusa stroked her head. "No. I'll find him. I'll help him, Narcissa. They won't get to him before I do, I promise."

"Okay." replied Narcissa meekly.

There was a silence in which Medusa could bring herself to do nothing but comfort the other woman, though she was growing highly apprehensive about the time she was losing.

"Narcissa, it would really help me if I knew where Draco was."

… "I don't know."

"Narcissa…"

"I don't know."

_Does she really not know or is she protecting him? _wondered Jabber.

_Does it matter? Even if she does know she'll take it with her to the grave…_ said Hiss.

_But we're on her side! Shouldn't she trust us? _

Hiss shrieked with laughter. _Jabber! The genes for 'Trust' have long since been bred out of the pureblood gene pool, you fool. _

"Alright," relented Medusa. "Alright. Do you think you can tell me where Lucius is?"

"I…don't…know!" wailed Narcissa gripping her hair again. "I don't know! I don't know! I don't know!"

" It's alright, my love. It's alright…"

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry!"

"It's fine. I'll find them. I just…I just…" Medusa sighed. "I wish I knew where to start…"

And then…

It occurred to her to ask….

"Narcissa?…do you know….how I can find…_The Others_?"

Very very slowly, Narcissa straightened from the position of flagellation she'd thrown herself into when she'd been unable to help Medusa. She sat up and stared and stared and stared. Then…she giggled.

"_The Others…"_ she croaked.

"Yes."

Narcissa blinked. "They walk on the dead." she said, eyes glazing over.

Anyone else would have been baffled.

Medusa knew exactly what she meant.

* * *

Standing behind the angel statue, one could have looked out over the graves and believed that they were completely alone, amongst the crumbling headstones, the mist that seemed to hang stagnant and unmoving in the freezing, humid night, wrapping itself around statues of cherubs and gargoyles alike, masking them and making one no different from the other.

But if one had simply taken a few steps _around_ the tall angel and her dew showered skirts, one would have noticed many other important factors, the most pressing of which was the fact that nestled and crowned by the brackets of the angels arching wingspan…was a tall, hooded figure.

If you were unlucky enough to be a non-magical person, you would perhaps have twisted yourself in knots trying to figure out how this person could have simply apparated here. If you were unlucky enough to be magical, you'd realise that that was just what this mysterious figure had done. Apparated.

Either way, to be the discoverer of this visitor before she was ready to acknowledge you, would have been exceedingly unlucky for anyone.

But she was alone for now, standing still and void in the moonlight, a Black Hole vacuum amongst the stars, framed by an angel whose face the sculptor had twisted into apt agony considering that the crypt she hovered over belonged to the infamous Riddle family.

_How….typical,_ spat Hiss in abject disgust. _How utterly, predictably, pathetically typical. You know, if Narcissa hadn't come out and said they were here, this would've been the first place I suggested we check anyway…_

_Actually, we probably **wouldn't** have checked it, seeing as it's so bloody obvious of them to be here…_

_They're unafraid,_ said Jabber softly. _They don't care who walks in on them now…_

_Yes, well they're fools,_ replied Hiss. _They haven't won the war yet…_

Something flitted quickly between two grave stones in the corner of Medusa's eye.

_We've got company_, she thought and both Hiss and Jabber snapped silent in an instant.

Keeping her eyes wide beneath her cowl she waited and waited, breathing slowly, heart thundering , a predator, unflinching, unmoving, unblinking.

Then she saw it again, another robed figure rushing through the darkness, definitely trying to avoid attracting attention.

And she was gone, silent and deadly as sickness, not bothering to hide, but instead depending on the petrifying panic her direct attack would induce in her pray.

Sure enough, she caught him behind one of the more distant graves.

He'd been alarmed enough to gasp, which was enough time for her to cast a silent _'Splayagio'_ on him. His limbs pulled themselves spread-eagled like a starfish and slowly, agonisingly he began to float off the ground, back glued to the wall of a great, creeper-shrouded crypt.

"Revelatus." she murmured.

His cowl fell back, revealing his bared, gritted teeth, narrowed fearful eyes. Medusa took a long, shivering breath. Years had gone by, but really…nothing much had changed.

Including Severus Snape.

"So!" he breathed from his strangled windpipe. "It's true! You're out…"

"Don't sound _so_ surprised, Severus. I might start to suspect something." she drawled.

He laughed, wheezing through her magic.

They both knew perfectly well that the time had passed when Medusa would have begun to suspect betrayal from her comrades.

Still, it did not pay to anger her; they _both_ knew it.

"What are you doing here?" asked Severus suddenly.

"What are _you _doing here?"

"Shouldn't you be off hiding?"

"Shouldn't _you_ be off hiding?"

Silence again.

Severus laughed again.

"He'll kill you, if he finds you here."

"Maybe he will. Maybe he won't," shrugged Medusa, tightening the magic around Snape's throat and making him cough, making his breath whistle and the veins in his pasty forehead stand out. "After all, he's letting a little traitor like you run around…"

"I'm not a traitor. I was spying…for the cause…" insisted Snape.

"Don't…lie…to me," she said, increasing her stranglehold. " about things we _both_ know I know. We _both_ know what part I had to play in your _first_ defectation. We _both _know that you were no spy…"

"Yeh-es…" hissed Snape. "Which is why you should…be…careful….how…you treat…me…"

The strangulation stopped. Medusa chuckled softly in the darkness. Then the magic eased up and Snape fell to the ground wheezing and gulping in huge breaths of air.

"You always were a little snake." she said. Then, bending down and taking a handful of his greasy hair in her fist, she pulled back severely and whispered, "Make sure you don't bite the hand that feeds, Professor Snape. You owe me _twice_ over for saving your neck, cousin. _Twice._ Not once. Make sure you don't forget…"

"I haven't, cousin!" spat Snape, the veins in his forehead standing out with strain. "But you might find me a less useful servant than you intend me to be. They don't trust me, Medusa…"

"Ha!" she croaked. "I'm not buying your service, Severus. We both know that service requires loyalty and yours is, at best, whimsical…"

"Why, then, do you have a handful of my hair in your fist?" he hissed.

"I want your silence, Snape. Your silence on our…little arrangement the first time around…"

"If I reveal your treachery I reveal mine. Why would I…?" he whispered.

"To be sure," she agreed. "But all the same…Keep. Your. Mouth. Shut…"

"I see you've found your old plaything," said a voice from behind her.

_It's Bella! We're dead! They've got us! They've got us! _shrieked Jabber.

_Ssssssh! Quiet…be still…Remember how to be feared…_ murmured Hiss coldly. _Remember that you are supreme here…Bella is brainless for all her bloodiness…and we…together…we're an invincible mind…_

Medusa took a second to control the sudden burst of gall that had injected itself into her blood stream. "Do you mind?" she spat. "I'm in the middle of something, here, Bella…Tricks…"

Collective laughter shimmered in the air behind her.

_Ah, so the others are here too._

"Careful you don't kill him, darling." interjected Bellatrix, strolling forward languidly. "We all know how…severely opposed to coddling traitors you are and how…hungry….for a kill you must be after your long…long…_long_…endeavour at _Az…kaban_…" she didn't hesitate to draw out the name of the place, rubbing it in like shit in a wound. "But our Lord seems to want him around still." Bellatrix gently toed Snape with her boot. "Don't ask me why. It's a horrible waste of Dark Mark…"

_She toed Snape with her boot,_ said Jabber uselessly. _She can't do that! He's her cousin! How dare she do that?!_

_He's a half-breed. A mudblood. She can do what she wants with him and justify it to herself righteously,_ replied Hiss.

_But….but it's …Severus…Cousin Severus…_ whimpered Jabber.

Flash memories of a sunny day at Hogwarts, Snape hiding behind curtains of black hair as usual, Potter and Sirius flinging clods of mud at him…the stupid, loud-mouthed Lily Evans yelling at them, and Medusa standing off in a corner, watching with bitterness as her darling Sirius broke her heart by breaking Severus…poor Severus, whose mother had made a mistake when she was young and married a muggle who didn't understand, a muggle who beat his own son to 'rid him of the Devil' till he left welts in the boy's back…

That's why Severus never bathed too much. It was unfortunate that his hair got so greasy, but water hurt the broken skin and he was too proud to go to Pomfrey and show her. They'd been at the height of their friendship when he'd come knocking on Medusa's dorm room in second year, asking her for ingredients to make a painkiller potion…

And Sirius _knew_ this! He _knew_ this! As a little girl, Medusa'd been over many a time when Walburga Black had brought up the Snapes and their miserable condition in front of her sons, demanding her boys be kind to Severus.

Regulus _was_ kind. Regulus had always been a sweet darling.

But Sirius…. Sirius had been a bastard, using his own cousin to show off in front his mudblood trash friends…

Just like Bella was using Snape now to show off in front of her pureblood trash friends…

_Ridiculous. It had all come full fucking circle._

Laughter again. It broke her train of thought.

Medusa slowly turned to take stock of the situation.

Well, their numbers had certainly fallen, but if anything it was the most dangerous of the Death Eaters who had survived.

In addition to Bella, had come her mirror in male, Rodolphous, tall and broad shouldered, thick black hair swept back, thick black eyebrows arching over his dull, black gaze, and connecting at the ears to his well trimmed chin strap and goatee, grinning and leering, showing his pearlescent, perfectly square teeth as usual. Not far from him was his shorter, skinnier brother Rabastan; the toothy leer, of course, seemed genetic. There stood Augustus Rookwood with his broken nose and thick, curling brown hair, as well as that thug, Walden McNair in his mockery of a kilt and his biker boots. Mulciber and Avery, looking like the East London conmen they were in their youth, Nott and his axe, Electra Rosier with her fiery red hair. Amycus, and his bitch of a sister Alecto, incestuous maggots. Dolohov, teetering drunkenly and smelling of Vodka, as usual. Vincent Crabbe, Gregory Goyle…and of course….her very own favourite Death Eater of all time…Fenrir Fucking Greyback.

There he stood, right behind Bella, at the front of the ranks, drooling and slobbering and staring at her tits. Seventeen years in Azkaban , barely any tits left to stare at…and she'd come full circle to standing in a cold graveyard, with people she hated, having Fenrir Fucking Greyback stare at her fucking tits.

Medusa slowly let go of Snape's robes, allowing him to get to his feet. "Well," she walked forward, past Bella to examine the group at a closer distance. "Is this it? Our numbers have fallen. And there are no new recruits, no young blood." There was a dead silence. "Who's been leading you? Bella?"

Laughter broke out amongst the ranks. Greyback fairly roared with it, his jaw unhinging to reveal the row upon row of canine teeth sprouting out of his gums.

"Well, if you're laughing like _that_ I must be right…" murmured Medusa non-chalantly.

She heard Bella hiss with malice behind her.

"Still saucy after all these years, Medusa?" snorted McNair flirtatiously. Which amused Medusa because she'd never pegged the actions 'snort' and 'flirtatious' to be amassable. But that was McNair for you, sexy in that hairy, pierced, smelly, sweaty, armpit-scratching, phlegm-horking…highlander sort of way…

But just as she had at school, Medusa ignored his advances. She had an angry Bellatrix on her hands.

"How _dare you _come in here and fling insults about as if you'd never left?!" screeched Bellatrix, grabbing Medusa's arm and spinning her around.

"But I _never_ did leave, Trix," murmured Medusa so quietly, the others had to lean in to listen. "I got thrown into Azkaban and then _someone…_ SOMEONE…" She ran the tip of her wand up Bella's throat to her chin. "…forgot to get me out…"

"It wasn't my prerogative!" snarled Bella, though she swallowed, audibly nervous. "Our Dark Lord did not believe in your loyalty after how…it ended with you two…"

"Oh, but I'm sure _you_ did nothing to further my cause, you poisonous cunt…" Medusa 's hand shot forward wrapping its stony fingers around her cousin's neck.

"STOP HER!" screamed Rodolphous as most of the Death Eater lunged forward, headed by a bounding, half transformed Greyback, grinning in excitement. He'd wanted a piece of Medusa for _years_…

"_INCENDIO!" _roared Medusa. Flames exploded upwards from the ground like a wall against the attack, Several of the men yelped in surprise, quickly beating out flames and rolling on the ground. Then, before anyone could really react, Medusa called, "Splayagio!" And Fenrir, halfway through a pounce at her suddenly froze in mid air, his limbs splayed just as Snape's had been only minutes before. Then, "Disecticorum" she murmured.

_Hiss and Jabber shrieked and gibbered with excitement._

It was an old favourite of hers that they were _all_ familiar with, so she was not at all surprised, but in fact mightily pleased when several of them gasped in horror and yelled, "No, Medusa! Stop! Stop!"

Fenrir looked highly panicked, eyes rolling in his slack jawed face, then he began to howl with pain as little by little his guts began to split open of their own accord. Blood sprayed from his belly button and trickled down the crotch of his pants as if he'd urinated. The wounds widened and widened. His intestines were crawling out…

"Medusa, you blood-thirsty bitch!" shrieked Alecto. "Stop it!"

"There's no need for that, Medusa. Can't we negotiate?!" asked Rookwood, rather nicely.

Bella screamed, stamping her foot as she had so many times in their childhood when Medusa had cornered her. "Damn you! Damn you to hell!"

_We've already been to hell,_ said Hiss and Jabber in numb unison.

Greyback howled and sobbed and whined like the great beast he was , watching his own stomach leave its casing.

Then…Medusa ended it.

Fenrir fell to the ground, moaning, barely conscious.

Several Death Eaters rushed forward, wands at the ready with healing spells.

"Relax," she drawled coldly. "He's a _werewolf_. His gut's 'll crawl back in! He'll be right as rain by tomorrow night. You'll see."

"Vulgar display." murmured Electra Rosier weakly. "We are all well aware of your capabilities."

Medusa studied the older witch out of the corner of her eye.

Electra Rosier, elite, aristocratic, scion of one of the oldest, purest bloodlines, sister to Druella Rosier-Black, aunt to Bellatrix, Narcissa and Andromeda, and more than a little genetically responsible for Andromeda's beautiful red hair. Electra was still radiant at sixty, with her curling wine-coloured mane, shot through with silver. Last Medusa had heard, Evan, Electra's beloved only child, had been killed in the name of the Tom's Pureblood cause. Evan had been one of Medusa's closest friends. He'd been the very picture of perfection, with his porcelain skin, laughing mouth and ruby hair, the apple of his mother's eye as well as the eyes of many a sighing Hogwarts school girl too. Cherubic in look and devilish in nature, even Morgana ( the succubus!) had doted on him.

But Evan had trusted Medusa…possibly because she had been the only girl in the school who wasn't in love with him. Medusa had been otherwise preoccupied with a certain dark-haired rascal…and Evan had forsaken no chance to tease her about it.

She missed him.

She missed him and pitied his mother. There was a time when she had greatly respected Electra, but now that had dwindled down to distant pity…and resentment. Resentment with a woman who had not realised that her son might actually _die_ out of duty to Tom Riddle. Anger with a woman who grieved but still stubbornly refused to admit something two much younger, weaker women, Narcissa and Morgana, had admitted…

_This_ war…_This_ fight…wasn't worth their sons' lives.

"What's it to you, Electra?" said Medusa, still respectful, but years in Azkaban had dwindled her patience short.

Rosier smirked. "Nothing," she replied calmly. "I couldn't care less about Greyback, but such a vulgar display falls short of my expectations of you. That move was worthy of a LeStrange…" the older woman's lips quirked upwards. She didn't even need to turn around to sense Bella bristle. Then, Rosier's face returned to its stony vacancy and she added, "You lack your usual _finesse_."

_She's withered,_ Jabber was in awe. _Evan's death must have done it…withered her on the inside, dried her up…_

_She's been in this a long time, _said Hiss softly. _Wasn't she at school with Tom? She's one of his originals._

_But I bet she never expected this to take Evan…to kill her son…_Jabber whimpered sadly.

_How can she stand to be here? How can she believe that the loss of her son was worth this? _Hiss keened wrathfully._ We were her son's friend! We ate at her house! We spent nights there! We grew up with Evan and even SHE left us to rot in hell because some mad half-breed she chummed up with at school told her to! _

Medusa stared the woman in the eyes. "Azkaban has a way of rubbing _finesse_ out of you."

"Welcome back, if it means anything." Electra shrugged, turning away, her already stony gaze becoming virtually catatonic. "Maybe _now_ we'll get some decent work done."

"Oh yes! _Now _you warm up, you frigid ice-queen" howled Bellatrix.

Rosier ignored her. Even before their first defeat, Electra had never liked Bella. Neither had Evan, for that matter.

Bellatrix wheeled on the observing Medusa, teeth gnashing hungrily for a confrontation. "So you're back. And already turning the ranks. But have you been around to visit your _coward of_ a sister yet? Is _she_ still picking off unsuspecting men like a carrion crow?"

Both Hiss and Jabber snarled and spat and shrieked in outrage at the defecation of Morgana's mention in Bellatrix's mouth.

Medusa merely raised her eyebrows. "_Unsuspecting_ men? They're hardly unsuspecting the seventh time around at the alter. Morgana has enough notches on her bedpost to ward off any man with half a brain cell and a _healthy_ portion of ego. It's hardly her fault if they come a-calling anyway, the idiots. And if they're up for the challenge, they take the risks that come with it. You know that."

"Do I." laughed Bellatrix.

"You're just all green on the inside. You always were jealous, Trix. You've hated Morgana for her charms, since the moment your parents took her in and finally experienced the pleasure of having a _sane_ child in the house."

"_SANE?!"_

"And I can tell you Andromeda and Narcissa appreciated an elder sister figure who _wasn't _going to stab them in the back, at any moment, either…"

Bellatrix started and stared at Medusa .

_We know what you did to your sister…_ _TRAITOR…_crooned Jabber.

_We're going to kill you…_promised Hiss

Medusa smiled.

Bella eyed her worriedly, as if suspecting some of the many, many thoughts maliciously languid behind the smile. "Huh." she finally barked. "Claim all you want that your jezebel sister's _sane_…lot of good may it _do her_. She obviously got the lion's share of the both of you! _You_ implying that _I'm insane…_that I'm a _back-stabber_…_YOU, _of all people…"

Rudolphus had been hanging back before this, but now he come to his wife's defence, putting his thick beefy arm around her bony waist. "Pot calling the kettle black again, Medusa?" he said, baring his pearly whites.

"Can't be a case of name-calling if her last name _is_ BLACK, Rudy." murmured Medusa, turning to walk away.

Several of the observing Death Eaters chuckled to themselves. McNair actually clapped his huge hairy hands, shaking his head in wonder.

Greyback giggled hysterically, from where he lay on the ground, floundering in the soup of his own innards.

"Och, Dusa, cairling…"growled McNair. "Scorpion-barbed. After all this time?"

"Haven't you asked me that already tonight, McNair?" Medusa rolled her eyes as she walked past him. "Please. At least attempt to switch up your come-ons once per evening…"

"Raised by Lucius Malfoy," laughed Rookwood. "What did you expect, Walden? I've only ever met his son once, in his first year, long before our Lord inducted him, and the little snot was just as much of a brat as this one…"

He put his hand down on Medusa's shoulder.

_Ask now, _hissed Hiss.

"So where are they?" said Medusa.

Rookwood and McNair lost all signs of mirth. "Who?" Rookwood looked pale enough to indicate that he knew exactly who she was talking about.

The conversations happening in the background suddenly faded into silence. The Death Eaters watched, frozen. Medusa had a sudden mental image of a pack of haggard, rabid, winter-starved wolves, coats in varying shades of brindled shadow, eyes gleaming dispassionately in the darkness.

_Be careful,_ begged Jabber.

"Well?" urged Medusa. "Where are the Malfoys? "

No reply. Some looked around nervously, wondering whether anyone was going to volunteer to tell.

Bellatrix frowned, looking confused.

_You shouldn't have hinted that you knew about Narcissa,_ said Jabber with sudden clarity. _If you know about Narcissa, you've been to the manor. If you've been to the manor, then you know how things are with the Malfoys…._

_Play it through,_ advised Hiss. _You let nothing solid slip. And Bella's been guilty of enough crimes to think that her own mind might have jumped to her own most recent abberition when you were merely making a passing comment about her general behaviour…_

_Still, you must be more careful in the future…_ whispered Jabber.

Medusa's eyes blazed as she rounded on her old crew, striding forward into their midst, her robes flying in the cold night air.

"Cat got your tongues?" She snarled, grinning. "Someone speak up; I smell a killing coming on."

Alecto backed away from her in alarm. Even Rosier looked worried.

"Where's Lucius?"

"Why do you want to know?" asked Rudolphus suddenly.

"Lucius was like a brother to me," Medusa said. "And he left me to rot in Azkaban. Let's just say, Rudy, that I have a bone to pick with him…"

Rudolphus snorted and relaxed. "We don't know where Lucius is."

_What?_ snapped Hiss.

"I beg your pardon?" Medusa gave the Death Eaters her most disgusted look yet.

_Oh! _moaned Jabber. _If THEY don't know where he is then we'll certainly never find him…we have no lead! _

_At least it means he's safe. And Draco's safe…_

"We don't know where the traitor is." Bella rushed into the fray.

"Traitor? Lucius?"

"Yes." smirked Bella. "I always knew he was worthless scum…I told Narcissa that, when she wanted to marry him, but would she listen to reason?"

_Stupid bitch, _shrieked Hiss laughing hysterically. _If a man wasn't your darling Rudolphus you'd itch to kill him just for having testicles…_

_She only hates Lucius because he used to put her and her husband in their place, _Jabber replied. _And Voldemort preferred Lucius over Bella…no matter how hard she tried…._

"Interesting." was all Medusa actually said.

"Interesting?" Rookwood raised an eyebrow. "Medusa! Not going to blow a fuse over your beloved Lucius being a hunted man?"

"Rookwood….may I remind you yet again…AZKABAN…"

"Yes, yes, alright." he grinned, but it was obvious; he remained suspicious.

_They're not buying it_, murmured Hiss.

_They'll buy it for now…_ Jabber shrugged.

_They'll **pretend** to buy it for now…which buys** us** time, _thought Medusa.

And that was when Amycus suddenly came running back into their midst, gasping for breath and bent double.

"He's here!" stuttered Amycus. "Lord Voldemort is in our presence."

Medusa _felt_ _His presence_ even before the Death Eaters fell silent. Jabber and Hiss seemed mysteriously absent, as well, and perhaps it was their silence in her head that alerted her of Tom Riddle's arrival more than anything external, though she could have sworn the already chilly temperature had dropped about five degrees.

She involuntarily felt her entire body convulse with a mixture of orgasmic excitement and fear.

But the fear was a high…a well-loved, thrilling high…like a demented knight who'd religiously crawled in the dark for years to finally come face to face with the mighty, bloated dragon…only to realise that it, _too,_ had been eagerly awaiting his arrival.

Here was the dragon, breathing in the darkness.

Snape had come to stand at her side and she hadn't even noticed. Now, he gripped her arm lightly and murmured, "For your own sake, I hope you're as clever as we always thought you were."

"Dear Severus…" Medusa leered in the darkness. "_Have I failed you yet?_"


End file.
